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SUGGESTION AND 
AUTOSUGGESTION 



SUGGESTION AND 
AUTOSUGGESTION 

A Psychological and Pedagogical Study 

Based upon the Investigations Made by 

the New Nancy School 



By 
CHARLES BAUDOUIN 

Professor at the Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute and 
Occasional Professor at the University of Geneva 

Author of il Culture de la Force Morale" 
"Symbolisme et Psychanalyse" etc., etc. 



Translated from the French by 
EDEN and CEDAR PAUL 




NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1921 






& 



tflv 



V 



Copyright, 1921 
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc. 









FEB 16 1921 
§>C!.A608368 



Dedicated 

with grateful acknowledgments 

to 

EMILE COUE 

the steadfast Worker and Pioneer 



TRANSLATORS PREFACE 

The dissociation of hypnotism from mysticism and super- 
stition was efficiently begun by two investigators, Alex- 
andre Bertrand and James Braid. Bertrand (Traite 
du somnanibulisme, Paris, 1823 ; Du magnetisme animal 
en France, Paris, 1826) insisted especially upon the 
psychological determinants of the phenomena in ques- 
tion. He maintained that what we now call the hypnotic 
state was brought about through the influence of the 
imagination of the patients acting upon themselves. 
Herein we have the germ of Coue's theory of autosug- 
gestion as expounded in the following pages. Braid, on 
the other hand (various writings, from 1841 to his death 
in 1860), inclined at the outset rather to the physi- 
ological explanation of what he was the first to term 
" hypnotism. ' ' It is interesting to note that Braid was 
a pioneer in the therapeutic use of reflective autosugges- 
tion. He describes his own sufferings, in September, 
1844, from a severe attack of muscular rheumatism, 
which had made it impossible for him to sleep for three 
successive nights. He then hypnotized himself in the 
presence of two friends. "At the expiration of nine 
minutes they aroused me, and, to my agreeable surprise, 
I was quite free from pain, being able to move in any 
way with perfect ease. ... I had seen like results 
with many patients ; but it is one thing to hear of pain, 
and another to feel it. My suffering was so exquisite that 
I could not imagine anyone else ever suffered so intensely 

7 



8 TRANSLATORS ' PREFACE 

as myself on that occasion ; and therefore I merely ex- 
pected mitigation, so that I was truly and agreeably 
surprised to find myself quite free from pain. . . . 
A week thereafter I had a slight return, which I re- 
moved by hypnotizing myself once more; and I have 
remained quite free from rheumatism ever since, now 
nearly six years. ' ' The observation is quoted by Arthur 
Edward Waite in his biographical introduction to Braid 
on Hypnotism (pp. 45-6) . To the contemporary reader, 
and above all to students of Coue and Baudouin, it is 
obvious that the essential feature in the cure was not the 
"hypnotism" but the autosuggestion. 

Yet the idea that unconscious autosuggestion is re- 
sponsible for many of our troubles, moral and physical, 
was slow to mature. Even to-day, people fail to recog- 
nize that they are largely wrong when they speak of 
" the ills that flesh is heir to," and that they should 
rather in many cases speak of " the ills that fancy 
breeds." Still more slowly has come the recognition 
that in reflective autosuggestion, scientifically applied, 
we have in very truth the faith that moves mountains. 
Healers, official and unofficial, have at all times made 
use of the power of suggestion, but the use has been for 
the most part unconscious. James Goodhart, in his 
Harveian lectures on Common Neuroses (1894, p. 129), 
tells us that " there are many conditions in which the 
cure must come mainly from within, our function in 
chief being to call out this dormant power. ' ' But for 
Goodhart the " rational treatment " of disease was still 
to be found in skilled advice as to regimen and the like ; 
the " dormant power " of reflective autosuggestion was 
not yet revealed to his discerning gaze. In the most out- 
standing British work on psychotherapeutics, J. Milne 



TRANSLATORS' PREFACE 9 

Bramwell's Hypnotism (third edition, 1913), the word 
autosuggestion is not to be found in the index. Yet 
Bramwell inclines to accept the theory that the phe- 
nomena of hypnotism are chiefly explicable by the con- 
ception of " the subliminal consciousness, ' ' and he re- 
cords as the main feature of this theory that " the es- 
sential characteristic of the hypnotic state is the sub- 
ject's power over his own organism." Here we obvi- 
ously verge upon Coue's teaching. But the affiliations 
of that teaching can be best understood in the light of a 
brief analysis of the development of the theory of hyp- 
notism subsequent to the days of Bertrand and Braid. 

Substantially, it may be said that the theory of the 
psychological determination of these phenomena now 
holds the field. Heidenhain and others cultivated the 
physiological theory with vigour, and for a time with 
success. Charcot and the Salpetriere school maintained 
that the phenomena of hypnotism were mainly, if not 
exclusively, morbid; that they were manifestations of 
major hysteria or hystero-epilepsy. But by serious in- 
vestigators to-day it is generally admitted that the views 
of the Nancy school, the views of Liebault and Bern- 
heim, represent 4ne truth, and that the pathological 
theory of hypnotism now possesses no more than his- 
torical interest. For twenty years A. A. Liebault prac- 
tised hypnotism at Nancy, having a gratuitous clinic for 
his poorer patients. He rediscovered that expectation 
is the primary factor in the causation of hypnotism, that 
increased susceptibility is the leading characteristic of 
the hypnotic state, and that the suggester's influence 
upon his subjects is exerted through mental rather than 
through «bodily channels. Hippolyte Bernheim, pro- 
fessor of medicine at Nancy, was the philosophical ex- 



10 TRANSLATORS ' PREFACE 

pounder of these theories, and it is with the name of 
Bernheim (died in 1919, at the age of eighty) that the 
ideas of the first Nancy school are especially associated. 
Edouard Coue, as Charles Baudouin explains in his 
preface, has like Liebault devoted many of his best years 
to the practice of psychotherapeutics in a free clinic, for 
a time at Troyes and subsequently at Nancy. Baudouin 
is the first great theoretical exponent of Coue's teaching. 
He bears much the same relationship to Coue that Bern- 
heim bore to Liebault. He and Coue will speak for them- 
selves throughout the present volume. Enough here to 
insist on three of the most essential and novel features 
in the teaching of the New Nancy School : 

1. The main factor in hypnotic phenomena is not 
heterosuggestion but autosuggestion; and, as a corol- 
lary, the chief advantages of psychotherapeutics can be 
secured without a suggester and without the more salient 
features of the hypnotic state. 

2. Of fundamental importance to success is what 
Coue terms "the law of reversed effort," the law that 
so long as the imagination is adverse, so long as a 
eountersuggestion is at work, effort of the conscious will 
acts by contraries. We must think rightly, or rather 
must imagine rightly, before we can will rightly. In a 
word, our formula must not be, "who wills can"; but 
"who thinks can" or "who imagines can." 

3. The most significant phenomena of autosuggestion 
occur in the domain of the subconscious (unconscious). 
The new powers which autosuggestion offers to mankind 
are based upon the acquirement of a reflective control 
of the operations of the subconscious. Herein, as Bau- 
douin shows in his Preface and his Conclusion, the 
teachings of the New Nancy School at once confirm and 



TRANSLATORS ' PREFACE 11 

supplement the theories of the Freudians and the data 
of psychoanalysis. 

In the subtitle of Suggestion and Autosuggestion we 
are told that it is a ''psychological and pedagogical 
study.' ' The educational applications of the teachings 
of the New Nancy School are, if possible, of even greater 
interest and importance than the curative applications. 
It is not always easy to separate the two categories, for 
from a wide outlook the mentality of the majority of 
"normal" human beings, the products of what passes 
to-day by the name of education and the outcome of the 
suggestions of our exceedingly rudimentary social en- 
vironment, may be said to have an essentially morbid 
quality and to need all the relief that can possibly be 
given by the healing art. Consequently the apostles of 
the new psychology, the Freudians equally with the 
pupils of the New Nancy School, are educationists as 
well as therapeutists. We find a whole section on ' ' Edu- 
cation and Child-Study" in Ernest Jones's Psycho- 
analysis; while the American writer, Wilfrid Lay, has 
recently supplemented his volume Man's Unconscious 
Conflict by a work devoted to the educational side of 
Freudianism, and entitled The Child's Unconscious 
Mind. But the implications of Cone's practical dis- 
coveries and of Baudouin's theories are destined to in- 
fluence educational work more radically even than 
Freudianism can influence it. Intelligent educationists 
have long recognized that a large proportion of the 
effects of education, good or bad, are due to suggestion ; 
but a few years ago M. W. Keatinge, in his volume 
Suggestion in Education (first edition 1907, second edi- 
tion 1911) criticized the term autosuggestion as mislead- 



12 TRANSLATORS ' PREFACE 

ing. He wrote, ' ' the idea is really suggested from with- 
out, and appears to be 'self -suggested' only to the per- 
son in whose mind it has been latent." Nevertheless, 
most careful readers of Baudouin's book will we think 
agree that in education, as in psychotherapeutics, what 
goes on in the subject's subconscious is what really 
counts in the whole process, and that upon the success- 
ful appeal to the subconscious largely depends the suc- 
cess of the teacher no less than the success of the healer. 
Educational theory will have to be wholly reconsidered 
in the light of the doctrine of autosuggestion as taught 
at Nancy and at the Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute in 
Geneva. A careful examination of the successes of the 
latest educational methods, like those of Maria Montes- 
sori and those of Faria de Vasconcellos (A New School 
in Belgium, London, 1919), will show that their value is 
in large part due to an unwitting appeal to the sub- 
conscious, and to a skilful though not as yet fully under- 
stood utilization of the pupils' powers of autosuggestion. 

As for the philosophical, psychological, and ethical 
implications of the new doctrine, yet more interesting 
(to persons interested in such abstractions) than its 
bearings upon pedagogy and upon therapeutics, it is 
not for the translators to add a word here to what Bau- 
douin writes in his eloquent Conclusion on " Suggestion 
and the Will." Those who like to know whither they 
are being led, may usefully read this brief philosophical 
section before approaching the preliminary problem 
"What is Suggestion." In our opinion the Conclusion 
is equally valuable as a preamble to the Introduction, 
and might be read first as well as last. For, after mak- 
ing that intimate acquaintanceship with Suggestion and 



TRANSLATORS ' PREFACE 13 

Autosuggestion which is one of the privileges of a trans- 
lator, we unhesitatingly endorse the author's claim that 
the teachings of the New Nancy School are destined, in 
conjunction with the teachings of psychoanalysis, to ef- 
fect a renovation of psychology, medicine, and pedagogy. 
As supplements to Bergsonianism the two will probably 
achieve the renovation of philosophy as well. 

Eden and Cedar Paul. 
London, May, 1920. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

Since the year 1910 there has been in progress at Nancy 
a psychological and medico-pedagogical movement which 
we are entitled to regard as one of the notable scientific 
happenings of the present epoch. 1 The terms autosug- 
gestion, the education of the will, the force of thought, 
self-control, have long been current. But with the rise 
of the New Nancy School we have for the first time the 
elements of a really methodical synthesis of the phe- 
nomena and the disciplines which these terms connote. 

The pioneer in this development is a man whose devo- 
tion is rivalled by his modesty. During the years 1885 
and 1886, Emile Coue witnessed the work and the ex- 
periments of Liebault, who was, as everyone knows, the 
father of the doctrine of suggestion, the founder of the 
first Nancy school, and the teacher of Bernheim. Sub- 
sequently, Coue, whose financial resources were slender, 
had to devote most of his energies to gaining a liveli- 
hood; but, like all men whose minds are dominated by 
an idea, he went on working unremittingly in silence 
and alone. He studied the further developments of the 
Nancy principles in the United States, and was able to 
extract from the new theories such serious, practical, and 
solid content as they possessed. But he brushed aside 

*The presence of the enemy at the gates of Nancy imposed 
inevitable hindrances to the work, but did not interrupt it com- 
pletely. Herein is a sign of vitality. 

15 



16 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

all that was nothing better than puffery and humbug, 
and he likewise rejected the mystical postulates which 
underlay some of the theories. By the closing years of 
the nineteenth century, Coue had grasped the thought 
of which he was in search. He discovered in autosug- 
gestion the powerful and widely diffused force of which 
hypnotic suggestion, the only form of suggestion hitherto 
studied in medicine, is but one among many applications. 
Through repeated experiments he was further able to 
show that this force was efficacious in troubles that were 
manifestly organic ; and he proved that the education of 
the force, which though often confused with the will is 
quite distinct from the will, is a simple matter and 
within the competence of all. Contemporaneously with 
but independently of the idea of psychoanalysis (devel- 
oped along divergent lines by Breuer and Freud, on the 
one hand, and by the Zurich school, on the other), the 
idea of the New Nancy School, clearer than the former 
and more akin to the French spirit, leads us, by a path 
parallel with that opened by psychoanalysis, into the 
little-known domain of the subconscious, and contributes 
likewise to the renovation of psychology, medicine, and 
pedagogy. The two outlooks are complementary. 

By his perfect disinterestedness, by the establishment 
of a free clinic, Coue has been able to extend his ex- 
perience to far wider limits than those known to most 
practitioners. 1 In this way his energies were directed 
more and more into the practical field, were monopolized, 
if I may use the phrase, by the apostolate of action. He 
has written no more than a few articles in the bulletin of 

1 During the months preceding the outbreak of the war he was 
consulted by more than one hundred persons daily, so that the 
annual average of consultations would have been 40,000. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 17 

the school, 1 and some papers for psychological congresses. 2 
Even scantier are the writings of his pupils. The New 
Nancy School supplies the elements of an entire psy- 
chology, but this psychology remains unwritten. It has 
therefore seemed to me that it would be serviceable to 
attempt the presentation of a first coordinated outlook, 
however incomplete, upon questions whose theoretical 
and practical interest is of so high an order. Pre- 
eminently I have assumed the pedagogical standpoint ; 8 
that is to say, I have attempted to show how, by a simple 
process of education, a latent power may be made 
kinetic. It is this transformation, above all, that is im- 
portant. 

But on the threshold of my work, I wish to pay due 
homage to the founder of the New Nancy School, to the 
beloved teacher to whom these pages owe the best part 
of their substance, to the man but for whom they would 
never have been written. 

Charles Baudouin. 

^ociete lorraine de psychologie appliquee. Quarterly bulletin, 
published by Barbier at Nancy. 

2 A few interesting reports read to the Psychological Congress 
at Paris in 1913. 

"The subject matter of the following pages has been ex- 
pounded in courses of lectures given at the Jean Jacques Rous- 
seau Institute in Geneva, where I have also organized the prac- 
tical and gratuitous teaching of autosuggestion. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Translators' Preface .... 7 

Author's Preface 15 

Introduction : What Is Suggestion ! . 21 

PART ONE 

Spontaneous Suggestion 

I. Why Do We Ignore Autosuggestion t . 37 
II. Typical Examples 41 

III. Representative Suggestions (Images, 

Judgments, Hallucinations, Hallu- 
cination by Compromise and by 
Transfer) . . . . . .46 

IV. Affective Suggestions (Sensations, 

Emotions, the Peripheral Theory 

of Emotion) 64 

V. Affective Suggestions, continued (Sen- . 

timents, Tendencies, Passions) . . 77 

VI. Active or Motor Suggestions (Habits, 
Mediumistic Phenomena ; Sayings 
and Doings, Happenings) ... 91 

VII. Motor Suggestions, continued (Func- 
tional and Organic Modifications, 
Maternal Impressions, Cures) . . 104 

VIII. Conditional Suggestions . . . 121 

IX. The Action of Sleep .... 128 

X. Theoretical and Practical Conclu- 
sions (the Laws of Suggestion) . 134 
19 



20 CONTENTS 

PART TWO 

Reflective Suggestion 

I. The Law of Eeversed Effort . . 143 

II. The Outcropping of the Subconscious : 

Eelaxation 151 

III. Education of the Outcropping : Col- 

lection . . . . . . 160 

IV. A Psychological Equivalent for At- 

tention : Contention .... 165 

V. Autohypnosis 173 

VI. General Eules for the Practice of 

Autosuggestion 182 

VII. Examples and Special Eules . . . 204 

VIII. Autosuggestion and Moral Energy . 227 

PART THREE 
Induced Suggestion 

I. Autonomy of the Subject . . . 237 
II. Preliminary Exercises . . . .248 

III. Coue's Practice 259 

IV. Concrete Eesults (Suggestion and 

Psychoanalysis) 271 

v. acceptivity and suggestibility . . 287 

VI. A Contribution to the Theory of 

Hypnosis 295 

VII. Suggestion in the Education of Chil- 
dren 309 

VIII. General Methods of Application . 320 

. Conclusion : Suggestion and the Will 326 

Glossary 334 

Index . . • . . . . 337 



INTRODUCTION 

WHAT IS SUGGESTION t 

When we speak of suggestion, our first difficulty is to 
come to an agreement as to the meaning of the term. 
Furthermore, questions of words are at the same time 
questions of things; a definition is a theory. 

It may be true that the meaning of the term sugges- 
tion is still somewhat vague ; }mt this does not give any- 
one the right to formulate a purely arbitrary definition, 
haphazard. For by now, in the language universally 
accepted by science, the word has come to be applied to 
precise and well-known facts, and a definition which 
should fail to take these facts into the reckoning would 
be inadmissible. 

We have to ask whether all the facts, or a very large 
majority of them, exhibit a common specific character. 
If this be so, then wherever such a character is en- 
countered, we are entitled to speak of suggestion. 

Among the phenomena universally recognized as be- 
longing to the domain of suggestion, two groups of very 
different type have drawn the attention of various ob- 
servers, some persons inclining especially to the study 
of one group, and others to the study of the other. We 
have to ascertain which of these two groups is the most 
characteristic, and which we should therefore choose in 
drawing up our definition of suggestion. 

A subject is hypnotized, and the operator orders him 

21 



22 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

to look at an imaginary bird: the subject has the sug- 
gested hallucination. Or, on the other hand, a doetor 
may cure his patient by a simple affirmation of cure. — 
In each of these experiments, two phases can be dis- 
tinguished : 

1. An idea, 1 proposed or imposed by the operator, is 
accepted by the mind of the subject. 

2. This idea undergoes transformation into an action, 
so that the object of the idea (in the instances given the 
hallucination or the cure) is realized. 

These two phases recur in all the phenomena which it 
is generally agreed to regard as suggestive. But which 
of the two is essentially and truly characteristic ? Here 
comes the divergence of opinion. 

Public opinion gives its verdict for the first phase. 
Suggestion, for public opinion, has as a fundamental re- 
quirement two terms, an operator and a subject. It 
consists in the forcible control of the comparatively 
feeble will of the subject by the comparatively powerful 
will of the operator. 

The domination will be facilitated by a peculiar state 
known as hypnosis, and it is through the combined in- 
fluence of domination and hypnosis that we arrive at the 
second phase, the realization of the idea. 

These strange realizations, so astounding in their ac- 
curacy, which hypnotism has revealed to us, could not 
(it is contended) be brought about in default of certain 
peculiar conditions of which the leading condition is the 
presence of a suggester. 

^he term "idea" will be used here in the widest sense of 
"representation," and will denote the image as well as the 
concept. 



INTRODUCTION 23 

The theory just expounded is invalidated by the 
facts. 

To settle the question decisively let us ask what are 
the profoundest changes which the suggestion of an 
operator can produce in a hypnotized subject, and let us 
see whether an isolated subject can, unaided, produce 
similar changes in himself. 

To clear up this point we may consult one among the 
practitioners who have done most to widen " the frontiers 
of hypnosis," Bon jour of Lausanne. Let us examine 
the maximum result he has secured. 1 

A matter of outstanding interest is the regulation of 
childbirth by hypnotic suggestion : 

" I wished to ascertain what part the brain could play 
in the production of childbirth. Various theories have 
been propounded on this subject, but none of them take 
account of the action of the nervous system. Why 
is a child born on any particular day instead of on the 
following day? Why do deliveries take place more 
frequently by night than by day? I have advanced a 
theory which lays stress on the accentuation of internal 
sensations during sleep ; the discharge of the nervous and 
muscular mechanism which lead to the delivery is anal- 
ogous, in my opinion, to what we see in dreams. Dur- 
ing sleep, some trifling sensation from the periphery (in 
the case now under consideration, from the uterus) 
or from the brain (dream) is exaggerated by the brain 
and sets at work the automatic centres in the medulla, 
which arouse the uterus to contraction. If my theory 

1 Cf. Bonjour, passim. More particularly, Une preuve nouvelle 
de l'influence du psychique stir le physique, Communication faite 
au troisieme congres international de psychologie et de psycho- 
therapie a Munich. 



24 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

were sound, it should be possible, I held, to establish its 
truth by the use of hypnotism. 

" Professor Eapin, who was at this time chief of the 
maternity hospital and to whom I had spoken of the 
matter, begged me to make the experiment in his wards. 
He selected a young woman whose confinement was 
due three weeks later. This was on a Tuesday, and I 
proposed to arrange for the successful fulfilment of the 
experiment on Friday. There were, therefore, but three 
days for preparation. 

" Nevertheless I felt sure that the desired result would 
be secured, for my observations had absolutely convinced 
me of the part played by the brain in determining the 
time of delivery. 

" I suggested to the young woman that she should 
fall asleep on the Thursday at two o'clock, that the la- 
bour should begin during the night of Thursday-Friday. 
I told her that I should come at seven o'clock in the 
morning of Friday and that the child would be born 
at noon. 

1 ' On Thursday at four in the afternoon I went to the 
maternity hospital. The patient had fallen into a pro- 
found sleep at five minutes past two, though her compan- 
ions had vainly endeavoured to prevent her. I again 
told her how I had regulated the course of events, and 
left her with an order that she should no longer hear any 
voices except those of Professor Eapin and his assistant. 

"The following day I did not reach the hospital until 
half -past nine instead of seven o'clock, this putting 
things back by two and a half hours. The woman told 
me that throughout the night she had been aware of the 
sensations I had suggested. The obstetric assistant de- 
clared that labour had not yet begun, and my own exami- 



INTRODUCTION 25 

nation confirmed this statement. But I was convinced 
of the reality of the woman 's own sensations. They were 
the outcome of suggestion, and I could increase them at 
will. This is what actually happened. After sugges- 
tions had been continued for a quarter of an hour, the 
neuromuscular machinery was at work, and by the time 
when Professor Rapin arrived at eleven I was satisfied 
that my experiment was succeeding. He asked me to 
demonstrate the case to the students. I had not expected 
this complication, but I knew that nothing could now in- 
terfere with the successful issue, and I agreed. After 
the clinical lecture, Professor Rapin and I went down 
into the town, he, convinced that the child would not be 
born for three or four weeks, and I myself satisfied that 
all the phenomena of impending delivery corresponded 
to what I had desired to produce by suggestion. I had 
hardly finished lunch when I was summoned to the hos- 
pital. By half-past three labour was over, and I re- 
awakened the young woman, who till then was not aware 
that her baby had been born." * 

But the chief importance of Bon jour's work is that 
he has clearly shown the power of suggestion in organic 
disease, whereas Bernheim believed that suggestion was 
solely efficacious in functional disorders. 

Bon jour studied the part played by suggestion in the 
curing of warts. As the result of numerous observations 
he came to the conclusion that in about half the cases 
warts can be cured by a single sitting in which sugges- 
tion is practised for two minutes. 

The cure of a wart is a trifling matter, but a little 
thing may have weighty implications. The definite proof 

1 Bonjour, Guerisons miraculeuses modernes, Bailliere, Paris, 
1913. 



26 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

that suggestive treatment can be efficacious in disease 
that is not purely functional was a discovery of consid- 
erable importance. 

Bon jour passed on to study the suggestive treatment 
of other organic maladies. For instance, one of his 
patients was suffering from a corneal ulcer which, had it 
proved intractable, would have caused blindness. It was 
completely cured under hypnotic treatment. 1 

Modifications in an important and complicated mech- 
anism like the mechanism of childbirth, and, on the 
other hand, organic modifications — here we find the 
maximum of which we were in search. Now if an isolated 
subject, without hypnotism and in the absence of a sug- 
gester, can present analogous phenomena, if, that is to 
say, the subject's own thought can in certain instances 
bring about similar modifications, we shall be obliged to 
conclude that the essential and characteristic element in 
the process of suggestion is the second phase (the trans- 
formation of the idea into action) and not the first phase 
(the acceptance of the idea suggested by another). 

That this is actually so, the reader will learn from the 
facts analyzed in the following pages. 

He will see how the idea of an organic modification can 
produce that modification in the individual who thinks 
the idea. He will see that this action of the idea may 
be more powerful and more widespread in an isolated 
subject than in a hypnotized subject, and that auto- 
suggestion is really the prototype of all suggestion. 

1 Cf. the cases reported by Auguste Forel in his Hypnotism, 
English translation by H. W. Armit, Rebman, London, 1906. 
Among other cases, this author records one of strabismus and 
hemeralopia due to organic trouble, in which great improvement 
followed upon suggestive treatment. 



INTRODUCTION 27 

The conclusion must therefore be drawn that the 
presence of a suggester is not essential to suggestion ; it 
is enough to have a subject. In other words, suggestion 
cannot be defined as a phenomenon of transference 
wherein the starting-point is the consciousness of the op- 
erator and the terminus the consciousness of the subject. 
It must be defined as a work which proceeds wholly 
within the subject. If we do not allow ourselves to be 
repelled by barbarisms, we may find it convenient to say 
that suggestion is not an "inter-individual" phenome- 
non but an "mira-individual" phenomenon. Once for 
all, we must distinguish between the idea of suggestion 
and the idea of submission, of dependence upon an- 
other's will. We must not confound suggestion with 
subjection. 

We have now to examine an objection which is well 
stated by Binet in the beginning of his book La suggesti- 
bilite (Paris, 1900). He writes as follows: 

"We must obviously regard as erroneous the opinion 
of many investigators who look upon suggestion as an 
'idea which undergoes transformation into an action.' 
On this theory, suggestion would be confounded with 
the association of ideas and with mental phenomena in 
general. The term would be almost meaningless, for the 
transformation of an idea into an action is a psycholog- 
ical phenomenon which manifests itself whenever an idea 
becomes sufficiently powerful. In the narrower signifi- 
cation of the term, in what we may call its technical 
meaning, suggestion is a moral pressure exercised by one 
person on another. The pressure is moral, by which we 
mean that it is not a purely physical operation, but an 
influence which acts through ideas, through the instru- 



28 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

mentality of concepts, emotions, and volitions. In most 
cases, the spoken word is the means by which this influ- 
ence is conveyed, and a definite command furnishes the 
best example of the kind." 

In a word, for Binet the first phase of the above- 
described process is the characteristic phenomenon, 
whereas for us the second phase is the essential one. 

The chief reason why Binet holds the view he does, is 
that to define suggestion as "an idea which undergoes 
transformation into an action" makes the signification 
of the term too wide. The word is thereby applied to a 
great number of well-known facts for which no new 
name is required. 

Binet 's criticism is well founded, but the definition 
which he proposes is open to the same objection, and per- 
haps to a still greater degree. He considers that a defi- 
nite command is the typical suggestion. A few pages 
further on, in conformity with this view, he treats as 
absolutely identical the words "suggestibility" and 
"obedience." 

The truth is that this definition, "Suggestion is an 
idea which undergoes transformation into an action," is 
erroneous because it is incomplete. We do not need to 
supply an entirely new definition, but to add what is 
lacking. 

It will suffice to appeal to a characteristic which is 
plainly manifest in the simplest phenomena of sugges- 
tion. The characteristic in question is that the realiza- 
tion of the idea is brought about by subconscious activity, 
is effected without the subject's being aware of it. The 
idea of cure is proposed to the subject's mind, and the 
cure is realized without the subject's knowing how. An 
action is suggested to the subject during induced sleep, 



INTRODUCTION 29 

and the subject is told that the action is to be performed 
some hours later. The action duly takes place, some- 
times without any consciousness on the part of the sub- 
ject. More frequently, however, the subject knows he 
is performing the action but is unaware of the true mo- 
tive. In like manner, in the case of childbirth recorded 
by Bon jour, the extensive work which culminated in the 
realization of the idea went on outside the subject's con- 
sciousness. The subject only became aware of the result 
after everything was over and when informed of the fact 
by others. 

In the case of autosuggestion, it is precisely this un- 
awareness which enables us to distinguish the phenome- 
non from an ordinary act of volition, from one wherein 
the subject realizes his idea through conscious effort and 
while uninterruptedly supervising the work of perform- 
ance. 

• Thus suggestion may be briefly defined as the sub con- 
scious realization of an idea. * 

In addition to the reasons already given, the foregoing 
definition of suggestion is useful on theoretical grounds. 

The mastery of one will by another, the act of domi- 
nation with which some wish to identify suggestion, is 
far from being a simple psychological phenomenon, an 
instance of the working of a single law. It is the re- 
sultant of numerous causes, known or unknown, and 
extremely complex. The first of these causes is the 
" personal influence" of the operator. Next, on the part 
of the subject, we have the "affective rapport" between 
the subject and the operator. This relationship may be 
one of love ; it may be one of fear ; it may be one wherein 
love and fear are variously mingled. 



30 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

On the other hand, if suggestion be denned as we pro- 
pose, its working becomes subordinated to a psycholog- 
ical law which is comparatively simple, and whose prin- 
ciple is well known even though all its applications may 
not be familiar. This law is the one revealed by experi- 
ments with ChevreuTs pendulum, 1 the law in accordance 
with which the idea tends to realize itself spontaneously. 
Henceforward suggestion, acting in accordance with a 
simple law, can be looked upon as a " force' ' in the 
scientific sense of this word. Suggestion is the putting 
into operation, by ourselves or by another, of the ideo- 
refiex power which exists in us all. (See below, Part III, 
Chapter II.) 

No longer, then, need we look upon suggestion as indi- 
cating impotence and inferiority on the part of the sub- 
ject. In essence, it is a power which, by accident and in 
special cases, may be used against us. 

It was in such instances that suggestion was first seen 
at work. In like manner, electricity was first seen at 
work in the form of lightning, before man had learned 
to turn its powers to account as an illuminant or as a 
means of transport. The task before us now is to make 
a good use of suggestion, considering it as one of the 
natural forces, and looking upon it, not as a power for 
dominating others, but as an instrument for self-mas- 
tery. 

What has been written above shows that suggestion 
exhibits itself under numerous forms. Hence, classifica- 
tion is necessary. 

The first thought which arises in this connection is to 
distinguish between autosuggestion and heterosugges- 

'M. E. Chevreul, De la baguette divinatoire, du pendule dit 
explorateur et des tables tournantes, Paris, 1854. 



INTRODUCTION 31 

tion, according as the ideoreflex power has been put into 
operation by ourselves or by some one else. 

There need not be any essential difference between the 
working of these two sorts of suggestion, just as there is 
no essential difference in the growth of a plant when I 
plant it and when the gardener plants it. But the dis- 
tinction is none the less important, seeing that I shall 
have to invoke the gardener 's aid in so far as I am myself 
ignorant of gardening. 

But in respect of autosuggestions we may make a dis- 
tinction that is perhaps even more important from the 
theoretical outlook. As we shall learn, there is a psycho- 
logical condition prerequisite to all autosuggestion. 
This is that the idea should have a notable intensity, an 
intensity which is mainly the outcome of attention. ^An 
idea upon which attention is peculiarly concentrated, is 
an idea which tends to realize itself. 

We shall find, therefore, in the psychology of atten- 
tion, a principle for the classification of autosuggestions. 
Ribot rightly distinguishes between spontaneous atten- 
tion and voluntary attention. The former, the only va- 
riety, or almost the only variety, of attention in the 
lower animals, in savages, and in young children, is 
directed towards everything which interests us, towards 
everything which helps or hinders us in our aims. The 
latter presupposes reflection and conscious effort. Spon- 
taneous attention is displayed by us when our eye is- 
caught by a striking colour. We show voluntary atten- 
tion when we deliberately set ourselves to solve a prob- 
lem. 

In like manner, we shall distinguish among autosug- 
gestions, spontaneous suggestion, and reflective or volun- 
tary suggestion, according as the preliminary act of 



/ 



32 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

attention has been spontaneous on the one hand or vol- 
untary on the other. This distinction is comparable to 
that between wild plants and cultivated plants. 
We have, therefore, three kinds of suggestion : 

I SSrSSSS" \ =autosu gg estion 

3. induced suggestion = heterosuggestion 

We shall devote ourselves to the study of all of these. 
The education of the ideoreflex power, its training by 
oneself or by others, will be considered in the second and 
third parts. We shall be chiefly concerned with this 
education, for our outlook in the present volume is 
mainly practical. Part I may be considered as an indis- 
pensable introduction to Parts II and III. 

But before entering into the heart of the subject, let 
us briefly complete the definition of suggestion given 
above by showing what are the relationships between 
the narrower sense in which we employ this term in psy- 
chology, and the wider sense wherein it is used in cur- 
rent speech. 

Etymologically, to suggest signifies, to bring in surrep- 
titiously, to bring in from beneath. In the wider sense, 
suggestion implies the surreptitious appearance of senti- 
ments, ideas, actions, in a word of all the modifications 
that occur in our consciousness. The process resembles 
that by which fresh air enters a room unnoticed beneath 
a closed door. A thing is suggested to us when it enters 

J The reader will learn later (Part II, Chapter I) why it is 
better to speak of reflective suggestion rather than of voluntary 
suggestion. 



INTRODUCTION 33 

our consciousness without conscious effort on our part 
and sometimes in defiance of our will. It takes its rise 
in the work of our unconscious or subconscious self. 

In this wider signification, we may say that a picture 
suggests to us a sentiment or a memory. We feel that 
the picture is the cause, the " occasional cause" as Male- 
branche would have said, of the memory or the senti- 
ment. But the deeper cause is to be found in uncon- 
scious or subconscious work whose existence we can 
merely suspect. Something has been stirred in the 
depths of our personality. Thus, suggested states are 
contrasted with states to the production of which our 
will has contributed. They are effects whereof we 
neither see nor know the cause; they are like springs 
welling forth from the ground. 

To help us to pass from this wider sense to the nar- 
rower sense of the word, let us now make the following 
hypothesis. At a higher level than the spring, a river 
has become engulfed beneath the soil as happens to cer- 
tain streams in the Jura district. We realize that the 
spring is the same stream coming to light once more after 
flowing underground. A leaf which falls into the stream 
just as it is about to disappear, or one which We deliber- 
ately throw into the stream, will emerge at the spring, 
after it has been faithfully transported by the hidden 
stream through a region where no one could seize it in 
passing. 

''Thus an idea which has been introduced into the mind, 
or one which we have ourselves voluntarily introduced, 
will produce its effect as the sequel of subconscious ac- 
tivities and at the close of a shorter or longer period. &> 
9 That is what is meant by suggestion as we understand 
it, in the technical sense of the term. * Between this tech- 



34 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

nical sense and the wider sense given to the word in 
everyday speech there is a difference analogous to that 
which exists between * 'force' ' in common parlance, and 
' 'force' ' as understood by physicists. There is no radi- 
cal difference between the latter and the former, but in 
the technical use of the term we have less extension and 
greater precision. 

It is well that this should be so, and that a word, 
when it passes from current use into technical use, 
should remain faithful to its derivation and to the genius 
of language. 



PART ONE 
SPONTANEOUS SUGGESTION 



CHAPTER ONE 

WHY DO WE IGNORE AUTOSUGGESTION f 

A knowledge of spontaneous suggestion is the neces- 
sary foundation for all reflective suggestion. We can 
resist or correct nature only in proportion as we are able 
to make a stand against nature by the use of nature's 
own weapons ; in a word, by imitating nature. And we 
can only imitate nature in so far as we know her. Now 
autosuggestion, in its spontaneous form, is a natural 
phenomenon of our mental life, as natural as the phe- 
nomenon termed emotion, or the phenomenon termed 
idea. Moreover, the former phenomenon occurs just as 
frequently as either of the two latter. These statements 
are true although we do not play upon words, although 
we refrain from extending the significance of the term 
suggestion until it comes to denote (as in the usage of 
some writers) emotion and the association of ideas. For 
our part, we have been careful at the outset to restrict 
its meaning, and we shall sedulously avoid using it in 
any wider sense. 

But if autosuggestion be a phenomenon of everyday 
experience, and if it be one which goes on within us, why 
is it so often overlooked, and why does its discovery 
come with the force of a revelation ? There are numer- 
ous reasons. 

1. In the first place, let the reader recall the defini- 
tion of suggestion. He will remember that suggestion is 
a phenomenon exhibiting three phases: 

37 



38 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

First phase, the idea of a modification; 

Second phase, the work of realization, performed un- 
consciously as far as the actual ego is concerned ; 

Third phase, the appearance of the modification that 
has been thought. 

Now the second phase occurs without our being aware 
of it. Here, then, we have a causal chain whose two 
ends are within our grasp, but whose centre eludes us. 
Not without a certain amount of reflection can we con- 
vince ourselves that the ends we hold belong to the same 
chain. 

2. On the other hand, this reflection is, from the 
nature of the case, absent from our habitual suggestions ; 
for these are, above all, spontaneous phenomena. Ex- 
amples to be subsequently given will make the reader 
understand more clearly the extent to which suggestion, 
in its natural form, is free from conscious effort. But 
inasmuch as we have said that an act of spontaneous at- 
tention is the starting-point of spontaneous suggestion, 
it will suffice for the moment if the reader will bear in 
mind how little such an act, which takes place without 
conscious effort, is likely to leave deep traces in the 
memory, or to arouse, retrospectively, reflection. Doubt- 
less the object which attracts my spontaneous attention, 
the light which dazzles me, the melody which fascinates 
me, are graven in my memory with an intensity propor- 
tional to the keenness of my attention. But the act of 
perception, the mechanism of my awakening attention — 
what trace will that have left? I was absorbed in the 
act of contemplation. Like Condillac's statue, which had 
become "the scent of a rose," 1 I was for the moment 

1 Condillac, Traite des sensations, Amsterdam, Paris, and Lon- 
don, 1754. 



WHY IGNORE AUTOSUGGESTION? 39 

nothing more than the light or the melody. The per- 
ceiving subject had vanished before the intensity of the 
perceived object, and some difficulty is experienced in 
observing what was passing at the moment in the sub- 
ject. Thus the second phase of suggestion eludes con- 
sciousness, while the first phase eludes observation. 

3. There is an additional reason for our ignorance. 
Autosuggestion can operate upon us with incalculable 
power. Now if we permit this force to work spontane- 
ously, in default of rational guidance, disastrous conse- 
quences may ensue, and do in fact often ensue, i A large 
number of illnesses arise from this cause alone. Even 
in the case of morbid phenomena whose cause is obvi- 
ously physical, it frequently happens among persons 
(and they form the enormous majority) who do not un- 
derstand the mechanism of spontaneous suggestion, that 
this force considerably aggravates the malady. But if 
by our own insight or with the help of others we dis- 
cover that we have been the architects of our own suf- 
ferings, we are extremely loath to admit so humiliating 
a truth. In fact we refuse to admit it, and directly the 
discovery presses upon our consciousness, there ensues 
what psychoanalysts have termed repression, the phe- 
nomenon whereby we are induced to forget the very rea- 
sons which have led us to the dreaded conclusion. This 
foolish vanity is far from being exceptional. Those who 
protest most energetically that they know naught of it, 
are often most completely enthralled by it, and their 
protests are nothing more than one of the numerous arti- 
fices which the censor employs to fool the consciousness. 
The same remark applies to the protests of persons who 
declare that they have never been the victims of unfor- 
tunate autosuggestions. We have all suffered in this 



40 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

way, and especially those who regard themselves as im- 
mune. 

These three reasons suffice to explain why we have 
remained so completely ignorant of phenomena which 
concern us so deeply. In ultimate analysis, every one of 
these reasons proves to be a manifestation of the activity 
of the "subconscious" or the " unconscious. " 'Every 
one of them is a manifestation of the mental activity 
which goes on in us without our being aware of it.' They 
are part of the furniture of that back shop of the mind ; 
they belong to that life which goes on in the wings in- 
stead of on the stage ; they are part of that world filled 
with a strangely vigorous activity, the world in which 
thought and action continue during sleep. * The life of 
this underworld controls us unceasingly. It leads us at 
hazard, so long as we lack the clues/ But it discloses to 
us good roads — as soon as we know them well enough to 
choose our way. Such is. the knowledge we hope to 
acquire in the course of the following pages. 



CHAPTER TWO 

TYPICAL EXAMPLES 

Before classifying the numerous examples by which we 
propose to demonstrate the frequency and the diversity 
of spontaneous autosuggestions, we shall in the first in- 
stance, apart from all classification, give a few examples 
which will best enable the reader to understand the 
working of suggestion and will help him to realize its 
leading characteristics. 

At the outset let us consider the well-known phenome- 
non of fascination, where the attention is so completely 
captured by an object that the person concerned contin- 
ually returns to it in spite of himself. In certain neuro- 
pathic subjects, fascination displays itself in an aggra- 
vated form. But normal persons can grasp what we 
mean by fascination when they think of the attraction 
aroused by a luminous point. A still better example is 
the auditory fascination exercised by a door banging 
repeatedly during the night, so that we cannot help lis- 
tening for the recurrence of the sound. We cock our 
ears as we wait for its coming; and we curse the door 
that keeps us awake, not so much by the intensity of the 
noise as by the fact that we are continually on the alert. 1 

What has happened? The first thing is the working 

^his example and other analogous ones have been ably 
analyzed by Paul Sourian of Nancy University. Cf. La sugges- 
tion dans l'art, Alcan, Paris. 

41 



42 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

of spontaneous attention. The isolated noise, breaking 
the silence of the night, naturally attracts the ear. Then, 
our attention recurring again and again to this noise, 
we imagine that it is impossible for us to refrain from 
attending. Next, the idea materializes (here we have 
suggestion at work), and in fact we are no longer able 
to withdraw the attention. v We have spontaneously sug- 
gested our own impotence, v 

We now make repeated efforts to release the attention 
from the object which fascinates it, but at each success- 
ive effort we feel that our powerlessness becomes more 
evident. Here is the remarkable point : the effort coun- 
teracts itself, turning to the right when it wishes to turn 
to the left ; our effort spontaneously reverses itself in ac- 
cordance with the idea which actually dominates the 
mind and which has become a suggestion — the idea of 
impotence. In a word, the more we wish, the less are 
we able. 

We shall see later that a definite law is here in opera- 
tion. The characteristics just described as attaching to 
spontaneous suggestion will stand out far more clearly 
when they have been evoked as it were to order, by 
means of reflective or induced suggestion. Coue and 
other investigators noted these characteristics first of all 
when they had been artificially evoked, and were subse- 
quently able to recognize them in purely spontaneous 
suggestions. 

From fascination we pass by an easy stage to obses- 
sion, which is nothing more than a mental fascination, a 
fascination by images, memories, ideas, from which we 
cannot free the mind, simply because we think we cannot 
free it and because this thought becomes a suggestion. 



TYPICAL EXAMPLES 43 

The fixed idea is only the ultimate degree of obsession. 
Moreover, obsession and fascination, which become more 
overwhelming at every effort made to dispel them, can be 
dispelled by a reflective autosuggestion or by an induced 
suggestion. (Let me say parenthetically at this stage 
that reflective autosuggestion and induced suggestion 
comprise a form of action totally distinct from voluntary 
effort.) 1 

Neurasthenia may be considered from the neurological 
outlook. But mental conditions play a predominant 
part in this disorder. From the mental point of view it 
may be said that neurasthenia is an obsession by " black' ' 
ideas, melancholy, anguish, a sense of powerlessness, 
fears more or less well founded. Here, too, effort for 
deliverance is fatal. To use Coue's simile, the neuras- 
thenic, like a man caught in a quicksand, engulfs him- 
self more hopelessly with every effort he makes to get 
free. On the other hand, when, through countersugges- 
tion or through any other cause, the autosuggestion of 
powerlessness disappears from the patient's mind, he im- 
mediately finds himself on the high road to recovery. 

Furthermore, the psychology of the neurasthenic ex- 
hibits certain characteristic features of suggestion which 
will have to be more fully considered later, for their 
theoretical and practical consequences are of the first 
importance. It seems as if the neurasthenic wished to 
be sad, as if he craved for black ideas. Through the in- 
fluence of the subconscious he is led unwittingly to seize 
upon anything which can supply his melancholy with 

*The reader cannot guard too carefully against confounding 
voluntary effort with autosuggestion. We shall see that the 
latter is efficacious precisely in proportion as it is remote from 
the former. 



44 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

some shadow of reason. In the newspaper he pounces 
on a paragraph recording a disaster. In his personal 
memories, he can recall only the gloomy days. He hunts 
down painful incidents as a beast hunts its prey. He 
does this, of course, without wishing to ; and he does it 
all the more when he tries not to. In a word, everything 
happens as if a single goal were in prospect — to be sor- 
rowful. Everything happens as if the subconscious were 
employing all possible artifices to attain this goal, were 
inventing all conceivable means to realize this end. At 
a later stage we shall analyze yet more striking examples 
of such teleology. 

Our series of preliminary examples must be concluded 
with an account of vertigo. Coue writes on this subject : 
"Lay upon the ground a plank thirty feet long and nine 
inches wide. Everyone will be able to walk along this 
plank without putting a foot to the ground on either 
side. Now change the conditions of the experiment. 
Let the plank connect the twin towers of a cathedral, and 
tell me who will be able to walk for a yard along this 
narrow pathway. Do you think you will be able to? 
You could not make a couple of steps without beginning 
to tremble ; and then, despite all your efforts of will, you 
would inevitably fall." 1 

This well-known phenomenon, a fall due to vertigo, 
is extremely instructive from the light it throws upon 
the emotional mechanism of spontaneous suggestion. 
The perception of the abyss beneath naturally arouses 
the idea of a possible fall. But often enough we think of 
a fall without falling. Why, in the present instance, 

1 Coue, De la suggestion et de ses applications. Barbier, 
Nancy, 1915, pp. 5 and 6. 



TYPICAL EXAMPLES 45 

does the idea of a fall become transformed into a fall? 
In other words, why does the suggestion realize itself ? 

Let us examine the matter introspectively. What dif- 
ference do we find between the case when we think of a 
fall as we are walking at ease along the ground, and the 
case when the same thought comes to our minds on the 
top of a cathedral tower? The difference is that in the 
latter instance the idea of danger is inseparable from the 
idea of the fall. We are afraid. When we say this we 
lay a finger upon the crucial factor of emotion, which is 
the main cause of the majority of spontaneous sugges- 
tions. In the case now under consideration, this emo- 
tional factor is peculiarly conspicuous; but it is by no 
means absent from the suggestions previously considered. 
Obsessions and neurasthenia are sustained by a per- 
petual accompaniment of emotion, sometimes acute, 
sometimes massive ; and they find an appropriate soil in 
persons of a highly emotional disposition. 

Let us bear in mind, henceforward, this close tie be- 
tween emotion and spontaneous suggestion. The atten- 
tion which is the primary cause of spontaneous sugges- 
tion is an affective state, and is not purely intellectual. 
Spontaneous suggestion, like emotion, seizes us without 
our knowing why. In nothing are we more passive, 
more carried away despite ourselves. Vertigo is typical 
of such suggestions ; and suggestion itself, in so far as it 
enters the realm of consciousness, is a sort of vertigo. 
In so far as it enters the realm of consciousness — this 
reservation is indispensable; for in many instances the 
process takes place in the sphere of the subconscious, and 
the subject is aware of the result alone. 



CHAPTER THREE 

REPRESENTATIVE SUGGESTIONS 

(Images, Judgments, Hallucinations, Hallucination by 
Compromise and by Transfer) 

In view of the practical and pedagogic aim of the pres- 
ent work, it is essential that we should make the reader 
understand the frequency of spontaneous suggestion. 
We shall give a great variety of examples, without mul- 
tiplying them unduly. 

These examples must not be presented in disorderly 
array. A simple classification is the following: 

A. Instances belonging to the representative domain 
(sensations, mental images, dreams, visions, memories, 
opinions, and all intellectual phenomena) ; 

B. Instances belonging to the affective domain (joy 
or sorrow, emotions, sentiments, tendencies, passions) ; 

C. Instances belonging to the active or motor domain 
(actions, volitions, desires, gestures, movements at the 
periphery or in the interior of the body, functional or 
organic modifications). 

Such is the classification we shall adopt. We shall see 
that in each of these domains, and in the most varied 
types of case, spontaneous suggestion is at work. For 
we say nothing intelligible if we confine ourselves to the 
abstract principle, "Every idea tends to undergo trans- 
formation into reality." Such a principle must be con- 
sidered as nothing more than a convenient means for 
summarizing a large number of observations. To say 
that ideas "tend" to realize themselves, implies that in 

46 



REPRESENTATIVE SUGGESTIONS 47 

some instances they realize themselves, whereas in some 
instances they fail to do so. If the formal phrase is to 
have a real content, we must show what ideas in actual 
fact are usually seen undergoing transformation into the 
corresponding realities. This is our immediate task. 

In the representative domain, the fact of suggestion 
can be expressed by a formula which will at first seem a 
strange one, namely, The idea 1 of an idea gives birth to 
this idea. 

As far as the motor domain is concerned, we shall say, 
The idea of a movement gives birth to this movement. 
This formula is comparatively easy to understand. 

In the representative domain, we have to do with a 
sort of suggestion at second-hand. In this sense the 
matter is evidently somewhat complex. But from an- 
other outlook we are dealing with something'simpler-than 
when we enter the motor domain, for is it not more ele- 
mentary to see an idea undergoing transformation into 
an idea, than to see an idea undergoing transformation 
into a movement or into an organic modification ? In the 
former case we have the mind acting on itself. When 
we move on to study the action of the mind on the body, 
we feel as if we had passed a stage further, as if we had 
left the comparatively simple for the comparatively 
complex. 

But what is the idea of an idea? Is it easy to distin- 
guish the state "I think' ' from the state "I think that 
I think"? Spinoza 2 believed that the distinction could 

1 The term " idea " is used in the widest sense of " mental 
representation." 

2 Spinoza, Tractatus de intellectus emendatione. English 
translation by Hale White, Duckworth, London, 1899, p. 17. 



48 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

be drawn, and he spoke of the idea of an idea, of the idea 
of the idea of an idea, and so on, as if they were realities 
he had seen with his very eyes. In truth this play with 
abstractions is somewhat artificial. Perhaps it is a mere 
playing with words; and we must look at the matter 
more concretely. 

The idea of a movement, or let us say the image of a 
movement, can be clearly distinguished from the move- 
ment itself. The same thing can be affirmed of the image 
of any material object. Whereas the material object is 
visible to everyone, and forms part of the system of 
external realities, the image of this object exists only in 
the mind of the person who thinks that image. You see, 
just as I see, the house at which I am looking ; but you 
do not see the house of my thought. In contrast with 
the object, we may say that the image is subjective. 

But when the object itself is a mental state, and is 
therefore subjective, the distinction is no longer possible. 
Whereas the image of an external object is not an exter- 
nal object, and while being differentiated from the ex- 
ternal object by this single characteristic may resemble 
it in all other respects — the image of a mental state, on 
the other hand, can be nothing but a mental state. It 
would seem, then, that we must accept one of two alter- 
natives. Either this state-image has all the character- 
istics of the state of which it is the image, and in that 
case the former is not distinguishable from the latter, but 
is the very state itself. Or else, the former differs from 
the latter in some respect or other, and then the former 
is not the image of the latter. 

But when we reason thus, we are, as so often happens, 
duped by our own dilemma. In fact, even if there do 
not exist, properly speaking, images of mental states, 



REPRESENTATIVE SUGGESTIONS 49 

there do exist equivalents of such images, and we may- 
term them schemata. 

"We wish, for example, to recall a proper name. This 
name is a mental image. At the moment when we desire 
to recall it, we doubtless think of this name. Yet it 
would be incorrect to say that we possess its image, for 
then we should already possess the name itself. But we 
remember certain characteristics of the name, the num- 
ber of syllables, the sound of certain letters, the initial 
or final consonant, the emotional atmosphere which is 
associated with it in our mind. We have a schema of the 
name. y By the very fact that for a certain time our at- 
tention has been fixed upon this schema with the inten- 
tion of filling in its details, we have started something at 
work within us. / Now, while we are speaking of other 
things and when we no longer think of the name we re- 
quire, this work is continued in the subconscious. Sud- 
denly, in the depth of our memory, a call sounds, resem- 
bling a telephone bell when the connection we have been 
seeking is at length established — and the name is re- 
membered. 

By this example we may understand what suggestion 
is in the representative domain. 

Amnesia, or loss of memory, may, just like the revival 
of memories, be the outcome of suggestion. Among 
hypnotists, it is a classical experiment to suggest to the 
subject that he has forgotten his own name. But hypno- 
tism merely exhibits in an exaggerated form phenomena 
which occur in the normal state, and there is no essential 
difference between heterosuggestion and autosuggestion. 
There are names which we know as well as we know our 
own name, and yet they elude us just when we want 



50 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

them. Often enough, this caprice of memory is very 
trying to the temper. "How ridiculous !" we say. We 
swear, we frown, we make desperate efforts to remember 
— but all in vain. 

The failure to remember the item at the precise mo- 
ment when it is wanted, is due to some specific cause, per- 
haps to some antecedent suggestion. Whatever the rea- 
son, since the name you want was perfectly familiar to 
you, you are astonished at the disobedience of your 
memory. The failure to recall what you want, the anom- 
alous working of your brain, positively frightens you. 
Spontaneously and unconsciously you make an autosug- 
gestion which aggravates the amnesia. And now, the 
greater the effort you make to remember the name, the 
more complete becomes the forgetfulness. You have 
noticed this before in similar instances. You are clearly 
aware that the harder you try to remember, the more 
obstinately do you forget. Each successive effort seems, 
as it were, to trouble more hopelessly the waters of mem- 
ory, to stir up more mud from the bottom, until at length 
the whole pool has become turbid. "A moment ago, I 
had the name on the tip of my tongue, but now I have 
lost all trace of it." You had a schema in your mind; 
you tried to fill in the outline, but you feel that this very 
attempt has effaced the outline; and you feel that the 
more you try, the more hopeless becomes the obliteration. 

But when you have ceased to struggle, when you 
have left your mind at rest, in the hope that the recollec- 
tion will turn up later, then, after a while, the name 
comes back to you. 

Moreover, it is not only upon isolated memories that 
suggestion acts in this way, negatively or positively. 
Memory as a whole may be similarly affected. In the 



REPRESENTATIVE SUGGESTIONS 51 

majority of amnesias, the part played by suggestion is 
enormous. We see this when amnesia is rapidly cured 
by a deliberate countersuggestion. 

What, then, is the mechanism of such amnesias? 

Let us suppose that two or three times in brief succes- 
sion you have suffered from one of the above-described 
lapses of memory, accompanied on each occasion by more 
or less explicit annoyance. Then the idea takes posses- 
sion of you that you are losing your memory. In actual 
fact, now, your memory is adversely affected, simply 
because you think it, and because your attention has 
thereby become concentrated upon the idea of am- 
nesia. 

In the domain of judgments and opinions, the role of 
spontaneous suggestion is often disastrous. 

At the outset, let us clearly understand the nature of 
this kind of suggestion. What is the schema of opinion 
which undergoes transformation into a fixed opinion ? 

You hear an opinion stated ; you are well aware that 
it is nothing more than an opinion; you have your re- 
serves when you accept it; you intend to look into the 
matter more closely, to reason about it. At this stage 
you think the judgments that have been formulated, 
without believing them in the strict sense of the term. 
What you have in your mind are not complete judg- 
ments, for belief is an integral part of judgment, and 
here belief is lacking. All that you have is what we may 
call the " schema' ' of a judgment, the idea of a judgment 
(or of that series of judgments which constitutes an 
opinion) . 

Time passes, and you no longer think about verifica- 
tion. You even forget the original source of your idea, 



52 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

But one day you are called upon to decide the question, 
and you discover that your mind is made up ; you hold 
the very opinion which you heard expressed formerly, 
although you have never had any proof. The ordinary 
newspaper reader, the man-in-the-street, is continually 
circulating these "hearsays," without professing any 
credence in them. Nevertheless the newspaper reader's 
opinions are based upon the falsehoods he reads in his 
favourite paper. He does not realize it, but such is the 
fact. The grain planted in him when he read, has ger- 
minated in the subconscious. He has made up his mind, 
and he believes that his opinion is established upon rea- 
son. The ruling class turns this law skilfully to account 
when it wishes to drive the human "sheep of Panurge" 
to the slaughter house. 

It is a well-known fact that by repeating tales to them- 
selves and to others, people come to believe what they 
say, and are duped by their own falsehoods. 

Next we pass to consider the role of suggestion in the 
domain of sensation. Let me quote some typical ex- 
amples from Paul Emile Levy's V Education rationelle 
de la volonte. 1 Levy was a pupil of Bernheim, and his 
book is transitional between the earlier Nancy school and 
the later. He alludes to an observation made upon him- 
self by Herbert Spencer : 

"If I merely think of a slate-pencil squeaking on a 
slate, my teeth are set on edge just as if I actually heard 
the sound." 

Levy refers to the familiar experience that merely to 

*Paul Emile Levy, The Rational Education of the Will, Eng- 
lish translation from the 9th French edition by Florence K. 
Bright, Rider, London, 1913. 



REPRESENTATIVE SUGGESTIONS 53 

think of itching anywhere suffices to arouse the sensa- 
tion of itching. 

" Everyone knows, " he adds, "that if we are expect- 
ing a visitor, we are continually hearing the door-bell 
ring before it really does so." 

We may add that while suggestion can thus create 
wholly imaginary sensations (hallucinations, in fact), 
still more easily and still more frequently does it give 
rise to partial hallucinations by transforming real sensa- 
tions to make them correspond to a fixed idea. From 
among our real sensations, we select those which conform 
most closely to the image preexisting in our mind; be- 
tween the sensation and the image there takes place a 
compromise, a more or less complete identification. 
Thus, when we are expecting a visitor, above all when 
we are awaiting his coming with some anxiety, the crack- 
ings of the wood in a piece of furniture or the blows of 
a hammer in the distance are mistaken by us for the 
sound of his footsteps on the stair. 

In the visual domain, hallucination in the strict sense 
of the word is rarer than it is in the auditory domain. 
The difference doubtless depends upon the fact that the 
image of a noise is not absolutely contradicted by the 
sensation of a real noise, whereas a vision is often contra- 
dicted by the presence of the external objects amid which 
the vision seems to be situated. These objects then act 
as "antagonistic reducers/' to use the term coined by 
Taine. I know perfectly well that two objects cannot 
occupy the same place at the same time, whereas two 
noises can mingle and interpenetrate. But even though 
complete hallucination be rare in the visual domain, what 
I propose to call hallucination by compromise is of fre- 



54 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

quent occurrence. Phantoms make their appearance 
above all in the night, when the outlines of objects are 
comparatively hazy, so that their forms are more elastic 
to the imagination. A pillar, the white wraith of a foun- 
tain, the bright space between two trees — such things 
constitute the material substratum of a phantom, owing 
to the resemblance between their appearance and that of 
the imagined winding-sheet. 

This phenomenon will be more readily understood 
when we contemplate its exaggeration in the state of hyp- 
nosis. In this condition, complete hallucination is by no 
means rare, but it is interesting to note that hallucina- 
tion by compromise is often preferred by the subject. 
The imagination, instead of inventing out of whole cloth, 
makes use of elements borrowed from real sensations. 
This is an economy, an application of the law of least 
effort. 

In this connection, let me record an experiment of my 
own. 

I had induced hypnosis in a boy of twelve, who was 
extremely fond of chocolate eclairs. Giving him a plate 
to hold, I suggested that he should see in it a chocolate 
eclair. Now, on the plate was a reproduction of Millet's 
celebrated picture The Gleaners, in which there are three 
female figures, two bending forwards and one upright. 
After a second or two, the boy said in high glee: "But 
there are three chocolate eclairs, and two of them have 
an odd shape, for they are bent in the middle." This 
was a well-marked instance of hallucination by compro- 
mise. 

The same type of hallucination, in a somewhat attenu- 
ated form, is commonly manifested in the work of great 
poets. Real objects are modified in form by the internal 



REPRESENTATIVE SUGGESTIONS 55 

visions they resemble, so that the real objects seem to be 
materializations of the visions. In Victor Hugo's writ- 
ings, such direct metaphor is exceedingly common. Let 
me quote one example from among many. 

The poet has just encountered a flock of sheep with a 
girl herding them. His thoughts have agreeably loitered 
in retrospective contemplation of this sight. Now his 
path leads him to the seashore, and here the surround- 
ings seem modified to fit his reverie. Anyone who wishes 
fully to understand what passes in the poet's mind 
should (like the present writer) retrace Hugo's footsteps 
and read "Pasteurs et troupeaux" 1 in its original set- 
ting. The waves are breaking on Grouville beach. It is 
eventide, and the full moon is about to rise upon the sea. 
The outlines of the landscape are ill-defined, and in the 
hypnotic atmosphere it is easy for the imagination to 
transfigure them. Leftward, the ruins of the castle of 
Montorgueil thrust like a human head above the promon- 
tory which juts southward into the sea at the northern 
extremity of the bay. The vision of the flock has lin- 
gered in the poet 's mind. 

Down there before me the pensive old watchman, 

Guarding the seafoam, the tides, the seaweed, the reef, 

And the surges beating ceaselessly upon the shore, 

The shepherd headland, wearing a cap of cloud-drift, 

Leaning on elbows, dreams to the murmur of all the infinites, 

And contemplates the triumphant rising of the moon 

Amid the wraithlike forms of glorious cloud, 

While the darkness trembles, and the biting squall, 

Scatters to the winds, with its fierce breath, 

The wool of the sinister ocean sheep. 

Elsewhere the poet, burning with indignation at the 
'I^es Contemplations. 



56 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

memory of an execution which continues to haunt his 
thoughts, seeing the moon rise red and sanguine, writes : 
"I saw this severed head roll on the ground. ,,1 But 
the same moon, one evening when he is engaged in reli- 
gious meditation, becomes "a huge consecrated wafer." 
Another night, when he is in a similar mood, he refers to 
the stars as " fragments of white-hot charcoal scattered 
from the censer of the infinite"; again, in a burst of 
lyrical enthusiasm, he speaks of the stars as "sparks 
which flash beneath the hoofs of Pegasus"; whilst on a 
night of pessimism the constellations are "the marks 
of the prison-house stamped on the world's shoulder." 
This enumeration could readily be prolonged. 

Hallucination by compromise is a good example of the 
law of teleology which dominates suggestion, a law to 
which reference has already been made in connection 
with neurasthenia. The internal image which wishes to 
realize itself in the form of sensation is opposed by antag- 
onistic reducers which are real sensations; but it trans- 
forms these obstacles into aids ; subconsciously, it chooses 
from among them those which it can best turn to ac- 
count, those which can serve it as material ; and upon this 
material it stamps its own impress. This is obvious in 
Hugo's "ocean sheep." In the case of the "white-hot 
charcoal from the censer," and in that of the "conse- 
crated wafer," the process is somewhat different. We 
cannot say that the image of the censer, or that of the 
host, existed in the poet's mind in a conscious form; 
what he was conscious of was an affective state, the state 
of religious contemplation. The image of the host, the 
image of the censer, etc., were associated with this state 
in the subconscious; they were "preconscious," were, 
s Iyes Chatiments. 



REPRESENTATIVE SUGGESTIONS 57 

that is to say, quite ready to rise to the surface; the 
sight of a real object called them up by resemblance. 
The case of the "severed head" was of a type intermedi- 
ate between those just analyzed. The poet's mind was 
mastered by an affective state, wherein rage and pity 
were combined. But with this state there were intermin- 
gled images which passed one after another through con- 
sciousness : the guillotine, the condemned man, his aspect, 
the waiting crowd, and so on. Among these images was 
that of the severed head. It had flashed through con- 
sciousness, several times perhaps ; and when not actually 
present to consciousness it had remained in the precon- 
scious, intimately associated with the dominant affective 
state. 

We lay stress upon these examples, for they supply an 
answer to an obvious objection, and they are instances of 
the working of the remarkable law of transference. 

Suggestion is an idea which, subconsciously, trans- 
forms itself into the corresponding reality. But in that 
case, we shall be told, a hallucination could only be a 
suggestion when the subject has been expecting it, when 
he has already had the mental image whereof the hallu- 
cination gives him a quasi-material sensation. Nay, more, 
his mind must have been positively obsessed, his atten- 
tion must have been monopolized by this mental image. 
Now, the majority of persons who suffer from hallucina- 
tions insist that their " voices" or their "visions" take 
them entirely unawares, come unexpectedly out of the 
void, startling their imagination and often producing 
actual dismay. Here, it would seem at first sight, there 
can be no question of suggestion, seeing that the first of 
the three phases, the preliminary idea of the thing real- 
ized, is lacking. 



58 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

In exceptional instances, this objection may be valid, 
or must be admitted as a logical possibility; but far 
more often it can be refuted by careful observation. The 
examples given above furnish the key for the refutation 
of the criticism. 

In the case of the severed head, and still more in those 
of the host and of the censer, it was not the mental imago 
of these things which engrossed the attention at the out- 
set; the attention was already engrossed, as it is in the 
origination of every suggestion. The obsession was 
there, but it was obsession by an affective state, not by 
an image. Nevertheless, in the poet's subconsciousness, 
the image was closely associated with this affective state. 
(In early youth, his only experience of religious con- 
templation had been gained in Catholic churches, and in 
connection with the host and with censers.) By the 
chance play of objective sensations, these slumbering 
images, so intimately related to his actual state of mind, 
were reawakened. Thereafter, everything happened as 
if the obsession had been transferred from the affective 
state to the image so closely associated with that state, 
the image which symbolized that state, so that by spon- 
taneous suggestion the image was then realized in hal- 
lucinatory form. 

This transference is a further manifestation of the 
teleology of the subconscious. "Every state which en- 
grosses the mind, tends in one way or another to secure 
external expression, for it is a concentrated energy 
which wishes to diffuse itself, ^ow for Victor Hugo, hal- 
lucination by compromise, which in him is the source of 
symbolical poetry, is the normal method of discharge. 
But an affective state cannot thus be externalized. We 



REPRESENTATIVE SUGGESTIONS 59 

cannot visualize religions contemplation; we cannot 
visualize wrath. The obsession, therefore, is trans- 
ferred. A visible object, a symbol (the censer, the sev- 
ered head), is substituted for the unduly abstract emo- 
tional object, and the suggestion then runs its course. 

These examples of hallucination by compromise will 
enable the reader to gain a clear understanding of the 
process of transference, which appears to be the general 
law governing all hallucinations of such a character. A 
neuropath for whom all the stones in the road become 
pustules, for whom every runnel of water is a loathsome 
issue of some morbid humour, may not be directly ob- 
sessed by such images; but he is manifestly obsessed by 
ideas, by fears, of disease and of decomposition. These 
ideas and fears are too abstract to be externalized, and 
they are therefore replaced by the concrete visions which 
are associated with them. 

The law of transference is likewise in operation in the 
origination of certain complete hallucinations. In the 
preceding instances, the immediate cause of the transfer- 
ence was to be found in the chance working of external 
circumstances, of real sensations. But in other instances 
the entire process is internal. Transference has been 
carefully studied by the psychoanalysts, and they have 
shown that it may result from a number of subconscious 
influences, and above all from the working of repression.' 
The analysis of a case of hallucination reported by Au- 
guste Lemaitre 2 will enable us to understand the genesis 
of hallucination by repression. We see in it an example 

*Cf. Regis and Hesnard, Psychoanalyse des nevroses et des 
psychoses, Alcan, Paris. 
8 " Archives de Psychologie," July, 1916, Kundig, Geneva. 



60 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

of suggestion in which both the first phase and the second 
phase remain in the sphere of the subconscious. But 
the process is none the less complete. Here is the his- 
tory of the case : 

"Amedee was a boy of fifteen. During the Easter 
holidays he was in a mountain region, and after he had 
been there two weeks he became suddenly subject to 
hallucinations. He was an intelligent lad with more 
inclination for study than for out-of-door amusements; 
but for health reasons he somewhat reluctantly devoted 
himself to these latter for an hour or so daily. His 
environment was one of kindliness, but he was far from 
sharing the luxurious tastes of his family. In fact, he 
felt himself out of place in these surroundings. The 
commonplaceness of everyday life, even when richly 
gilded, had for a year past, since he had begun to think, 
filled him with aversion. He had grown more and more 
depressed. During the above-mentioned visit to the 
mountains, when his parents said to him, 'You'd much 
better go out tobogganing, instead of frowsting over 
your books ! ' this remonstrance caused him a violent in- 
ternal shock. His own words to me were: 'They used 
to treat me as if I were an imbecile ; they said I looked 
like a lunatic or an embryo philosopher. And all be- 
cause, during the evenings in the hotel, I did not want to 
dance or to play the fool with the others. ' 

"In Amedee 's family there was no history of neuro- 
pathic taint, except that one of his uncles had been a 
sleep-walker. The patient himself, when about twelve 
years of age, had on two or three occasions walked in his 
sleep. 

"The hallucinations, as I have said, began towards 
the close of his stay in the mountain resort. Both the 



REPRESENTATIVE SUGGESTIONS 61 

visual and the auditory hallucinations had a character- 
istic which caused him great astonishment; they were 
■fragmented. 

"Here is his own account of them: ' Often, while at 
work or while talking with someone, I suddenly cease 
to see the persons with whom I am conversing, and the 
other objects around me ; I am plunged into a dream or 
vision. Frequently I see a woman who is tall and ele- 
gantly formed, dressed in white, seated at a table and 
leaning on one elbow. On the table there is a lighted 
lamp. She is looking out of the window, and is patting 
a dog, which has no hair and no legs. Of this woman I 
see only the head and arms and the upper part of the 
trunk, and, lower down, the crossed legs.' 

"As a rule, the hallucination affects him in the even- 
ing. On May 8th, at 6 : 30 p. m., ' I felt a hand stroking 
my cheek, and it seemed to me that I must be going mad. ' 
On May 13th, at about 7 : 30 p. m., ' I saw a woman who 
had no arms, and who was turning her head from side to 
side.' " 

The history refers to other hallucinations which we 
need not describe, for the report is not sufficiently de- 
tailed to enable us to make a satisfactory analysis. All 
these hallucinations were fragmented; from the utter- 
ance of the "voices" certain words were missing; more- 
over, the author lays stress on the hours at which the 
phenomena occurred (4:30, 6:30, 7:30) — the very 
times were not integers. His inference is that all these 
hallucinations related to the sentiment of incompleteness 
with which the lad was affected. They symbolized this 
feeling, which was transferred to the symbolical images. 

But the few hallucinations which we have selected 
from among all those recorded in the clinical history, 



62 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

enable us to undertake a more exhaustive study, employ- 
ing the psychoanalytic method. 

The patient's age and the nature of the visions com- 
bine to show that their cause was deeply rooted in the 
domain of sex. Moreover, in the boy's detestation of 
luxurious living, of dancing, etc., psychoanalysis dis- 
closes to us the results of a repression of sexual matters. 1 
He refuses to admit the existence within him of certain 
desires. The very images habitually associated with 
these desires are repressed by the endopsychic censor; 
and it is to these associated images that the affective ob- 
session is transferred. Note more particularly that, in 
the visions, the more significant portions of the body are 
systematically suppressed. All this work of substitution 
has been effected in the subconscious. The upper con- 
sciousness is unaware of what has been going on in the 
depths; it is astonished, and sometimes alarmed, at the 
results of the process. 

Hallucinatory suggestion (except hallucination by 
compromise) is rare in adults. But in children it is 
fairly common. 

I can myself recall having seen, in childhood, a vision 
of bells flying through the air, ringing as they flew. It 
was on the Saturday before Easter, and these bells were 
bringing from Rome the greatly desired Easter eggs. 

George Sand and Carl Spitteler have recorded memo- 
ries of childhood displaying analogous phenomena, more 
or less strongly marked. It is probable that as we be- 
come more intimately acquainted with the psychic life 

*Cf. Baudouin, Psychoanalyse, Observation No. 2. "Archives 
de Psychologie," 1916, Kundig, Geneva. 



REPRESENTATIVE SUGGESTIONS 63 

of children, we shall discover that spontaneous sugges- 
tions of this kind are far from rare. 

Finally, an idea may not only induce sensation; it 
may also inhibit sensation. Thus, a person suffering 
from a severe cold, being no longer able to perceive a 
faint odour, will imagine that the sense of smell has been 
totally lost, and will in actual fact be unable to smell 
anything. 



CHAPTER FOUR 

AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 

(Sensations, Emotions, the Peripheral Theory of 
Emotion) 

As we pass from the representative sphere to the affect- 
ive sphere, sensations provide us with a natural step- 
ping-stone. As a general rule, sensations are simulta- 
neously affective and representative. Certain sensations 
of heat and cold, and to a still greater degree certain 
visceral sensations, are often attended with pain which 
may preponderate very markedly over the representative 
element. 

The idea of a sensation of pleasure or pain, the idea of 
a feeling, tends to oecome this pleasure, this pain, or this 
feeling. 

Here, again, we have to point out that such an idea is 
rather a schema than an image properly so called. When 
we think of a pain, we feel (unless our representation be 
purely verbal) a sort of reduced copy of the pain, as if 
we had only just experienced it, and as if a faint trace of 
it, a vague emotional echo of it, still remained. The 
vividness of this echo varies in different persons. There 
are some who, directly they hear any physical suffering 
spoken of, promptly display upon their faces the cus- 
tomary signs of pain. The forehead becomes furrowed, 
the corners of the mouth are spasmodically raised. This 

64 



AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 65 

implies that one who thinks of a pain, begins to feel it, 
has already a rough sketch of it in his sensorium. If, 
now, the attention becomes unduly concentrated upon 
this sketch, this schema, or- if the attention returns to it 
too often, suggestion is unleashed. The same considera- 
tions apply to every kind of affective state. 

As far as visceral sensations are concerned, Herbert 
Parkyn, in his excellent manual of autosuggestion, 1 re- 
cords the following incident. It has its amusing side, so 
that it sticks in the memory. 

"A New York visitor in Chicago looks at his watch, 
which is set an hour ahead of Chicago time, and tells a 
Chicago friend that it is twelve o'clock. The Chicago 
friend, not considering the difference in time between 
Chicago and New York, tells the New Yorker that he is 
hungry and that he must go to lunch. Twelve o'clock 
is the Chicago man's regular lunch hour, and the mere 
mention of twelve o'clock is sufficient to arouse his appe- 
tite" (pp. 11-12). 

Suggestion may also act negatively. Bernheim main- 
tains that in fasting men the sensation of hunger is neu- 
tralized by an idea. 

Phenomena of this character occur in connection with 
all kinds of sensation. 

Parkyn reminds us that a man, after touching some 
article of clothing, may be told that it has been worn by 
someone suffering from skin disease. The subject there- 
upon has itching sensations all over the body, and fancies 
he has caught the disease. Again, medical students who 
study the symptoms of various diseases frequently ex- 
hibit these symptoms and imagine themselves to suffer 
from the diseases in question. Facts of this order are 

1 Herbert Parkyn, Auto-Suggestion, Fowler, London, 1916. 



66 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

quite familiar. The pamphlets, leaflets, and advertise- 
ments issued by the vendors of patent medicines vaunt- 
ing specifics for all and sundry diseases whose symptoms 
are described with a wealth of detail, are responsible for 
an enormous amount of suffering. 

Paul Emile Levy lays great stress upon negative sug- 
gestions, those which inhibit sensation; and he is right, 
for the deliberate use of suggestions of this character is 
most valuable in promoting the relief of various painful 
symptoms. Here is an instance given by this author : * 

"The following fact came under my observation: A 
patient complained of a severe pain, the sequel of a vio- 
lent blow on the chest. His temperature was taken with 
a clinical thermometer, and when the instrument was 
withdrawn he said: 'That has eased me greatly!' — 
Other authors have recorded precisely similar occur- 
rences. Many martyrs have endured torture with a 
serenity of spirit which, they assure us, they were able 
to maintain without the smallest difficulty. Their atten- 
tion was monopolized by the beatific visions with which 
their ecstatic minds were filled, so that they were un- 
aware of physical suffering.' ' 

The painful sensation of cold (which is simultaneously 
representative and affective) may be to a large extent 
neutralized by suggestion. On the other hand, it may be 
greatly intensified by the same cause. 

A resident in Nancy, one who has since learned to 
make good use of autosuggestion, reported to me the 
following incident : 

"When I got out of bed one morning the window was 
wide open and the sun was shining brightly. The mere 
sight of the sun made me feel cheerful and warm, I put 

1 Op. cit. 



AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 67 

on very light clothing and went about my business with, 
bare arms, and nevertheless felt a great deal warmer 
than I had felt during the last few days. Then I went 
to the window and saw that it had been snowing. A 
glance at the thermometer convinced me that the winter 
had set in. Immediately I felt cold ; my teeth chattered 
and I began to shiver.' ' 

Thus the sun had induced the idea of warmth, and had 
even sufficed to arouse the sensation of warmth, or at 
least to neutralize the sensation of cold. But the sight 
of the snow in conjunction with the reading of the ther- 
mometer aroused the idea of cold, and the sensation of 
cold promptly ensued. 

Everyone knows, though not everyone fully realizes, 
how the sight of a fire which has just been lighted, and 
which has not yet begun to throw out any heat, will make 
us feel warm, thanks to the idea of heat which it arouses 
by a natural association. In a child, the memory of 
having suffered greatly from cold one day in the pre- 
vious winter will arouse a dread of winter, and all the 
more if, in answer to the child's question, "What is 
winter?" we have foolishly answered, "Winter is the 
season when we suffer from cold." Such a child will 
be "a chilly mortal" throughout life, or at least until he 
has realized that he has been a victim of suggestion. It 
may be that some countersuggestion, like the amulet or 
talisman in a fairy tale, will deliver him from his thral- 
dom. In like manner, one who has never before been 
sensitive to cold, will become so during a fever and will 
remain so after the fever, when the exciting cause of the 
chilliness has vanished. Similar factors are at work in 
the case of persons who declare they cannot endure heat. 

The sensation of weight and the fatigue that accom- 



68 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

panies it, and also the fatigue which comes from walking 
or from any other form of exercise, are the sport of un- 
ceasing suggestions. This is particularly noticeable in 
the case of children. If, when you are out walking with 
a child, you are so heedless as to say you are tired, it is 
ten to one that the child will say "So am I," and will 
immediately begin to nag and to fall behind. But in 
this respect we grown-ups resemble children much more 
than we are apt to fancy. A peasant, carrying a basket 
on his back, will stoop under its weight although he has 
unwittingly dropped the contents on the road. When, 
during a walk of two or three miles, we are dull and im- 
agine ourselves to have traversed double the distance, 
we are correspondingly fatigued. But the reverse is 
equally true, and this latter fact is susceptible of the 
most valuable practical applications. 

As far as concerns physical pain in general, sugges- 
tion will sometimes intensify it, and will sometimes act 
as an anesthetic. Coue gives the following familiar 
instance : 

"Consider, for example, a little child. He has pinched 
his finger or scratched his hand. Instinctively he be* 
gins to cry, for the pain is more or less sharp. His 
mother runs to him, blows on his hand, rubs the sore 
place gently, tells him it is all over now and that it 
doesn't hurt any more. Thereupon the child stops cry- 
ing and begins to smile. Wherefore? The child hears 
his mother say, 'It doesn't hurt now.' His unconscious 
believes it. He imagines that there is no more pain, and 
actually he ceases to feel the pain. 

"But if the mother, greatly alarmed, exclaims: 'Poor 
little darling, how you have hurt yourself!' the child 



AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 69 

redoubles his outcries. In this ease, likewise, the child's 
unconscious believes the mother's words. The idea that 
the suffering is great, increases the suffering. ' ' 

The reader may object that this example, and also 
that of the child which gets tired on hearing someone 
else complain of being tired, have nothing to do with 
the subject under discussion, seeing that they are hetero- 
suggestions. But comparison with the adjoining in- 
stances will show that the parent's words act only by 
way of the child's imagination, and become suggestions 
only after they have been accepted by the child. 

Besides, in this case as well, we may say that we 
grown-ups are more childlike than we suppose. We 
shall learn that suggestion consciously utilized by the 
adult may become a potent anaesthetic. But so long as 
we remain ignorant of this, our trouble is that we are 
just as credulous as any child, with the difference that 
we are credulous in a bad sense while the child is 
credulous in a good sense. He believes that his mother 's 
blowing on the sore place eases the pain ; and inasmuch 
as he believes it, it is true. For our part, we believe 
that we can only get relief by having recourse to a 
pharmaceutical arsenal; and as long as we believe this, 
as long as we remain ignorant of the power possessed by 
the brain over the rest of the organism, so long does our 
belief remain true, so long are we unable to do without 
the arsenal. But, per se, our negative superstition is a 
trifle more fallacious than the positive superstition of the 
child. 

It suffices for us to imagine ourselves poisoned by 
fungi; thereupon we are seized with violent colic. In 
this and in similar cases, we manifestly encounter two 



70 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

important factors of suggestion: emotion (fear, in the 
instance just given) and attention. The latter is sus- 
tained to the pitch of obsession, and is kept up by 
emotion. 

But emotion (the acute affective state) is not merely 
a factor of suggestion, not merely an auxiliary in the 
production of suggestions. It may in its turn be the 
object of a suggestion, and the idea of an emotion fre- 
quently gives rise to this emotion. 

Nothing predisposes to fear like the conviction that 
we shall be afraid, and, above all, the conviction that 
we shall be afraid in certain specific conditions. Noth- 
ing predisposes to anger like the memory of a previous 
occasion when our anger passed beyond our control, and 
the more or less conscious realization that the same thing 
will inevitably happen should the same conditions 
recur. 

But the idea, the schema, of an emotion is not neces- 
sarily a purely internal state. In contradistinction to 
what occurs in the case of movements, which are ex- 
ternalized phenomena although their image is purely 
mental, it frequently happens that emotion, an internal 
state, has external objects for its image, its schema. 
I refer to the physical signs which are the habitual ac- 
companiments of emotion, which are its expression, and 
which arouse it. Those who see in another the signs of 
fear; those who discern in their companions pallor of 
the face, a terror-stricken look in the eyes, a trembling 
of the limbs ; those who hear others stammer with fright, 
or who in a crowd hear the panic-stricken cry, "All's 
lost, every man for himself!" — are not slow to become 
affected with the highly contagious emotion of fear. 



AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 71 

Thus the collective fear which we term panic rapidly 
spreads through an assembly, an army, a country. 

According to what is known as the peripheral theory 
of the emotions, which derives from Lange and William 
James, it is an error to believe that emotion secures ex- 
pression through physical signs. These psychologists 
hold, on the contrary, that the physical signs are the 
actual cause of the emotion. We ought not, they con- 
tend, to say: "We weep because we are sad; we tremble 
because we are afraid; we clench our fists because we 
are angry." We ought to say: "We are sad because we 
weep; we are afraid because we tremble"; and so on. 
Were this theory sound, the foregoing suggestion would 
have to be classed, not as an emotional suggestion, but 
as a motor suggestion. The sight of the movements 
which express fear in others would have suggested analo- 
gous movements to the subject ; and these movements, by 
a natural sequence, would then have aroused in him the 
emotion which is invariably associated with such move- 
ments. 

Against this interpretation, it may be objected that as 
a rule the motor suggestions induced by the sight of 
others' movements do not operate with the requisite 
degree of intensity. If we imitate the movements of 
persons who are afraid, why do not we likewise imitate 
the contortions of acrobats, persons whom we usually 
watch with close attention? Does not the difference 
show clearly that in the production of fear there is some 
other influence at work? It is true that those who ac- 
cept the views of William James might reply as follows : 
The sight of the movements expressive of fear suggests 
at the outset the same movements to us, in an infini- 
tesimal manner, as in the case of all movements which we 



72 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

witness. But in this case the beginnings of movement 
at the periphery involve the beginnings of the emotion 
of fear. This emotion, like all others, makes suggestion 
more active, and redoubles the intensity of the move- 
ments; these, in turn, increase the intensity of the emo- 
tion; and so on. It is as if we had to do with a self- 
starting, self -exciting dynamo; the current and the 
magnification mutually increase one another, and both 
speedily attain to a maximum. 

There is some force in the answer. Moreover, it is 
true that there are other facts, still within the field of 
suggestion, which seem to speak in favour of James's 
theory. For example, the most potent method of over- 
coming fear by induced suggestion would appear to be 
for the suggester to direct his attention, not to the fear 
itself, but to the accompanying movements. 

A boy of twelve had from earliest childhood evinced 
a positive phobia of toads. Whenever he caught sight 
of one, his face grew pale, his back became arched, and 
he made convulsive movements with the forearms. This 
phobia had originated in imitation of his mother, who 
had similarly derived it imitatively from her mother. 
Ascending through the generations, the symptoms were 
more violent. The grandmother had a severe nervous 
paroxysm at the sight of a toad, falling convulsed to the 
ground. In her case, too, the trouble came by imitation. 
Her mother, in a deathbed delirium, witnessed by the 
daughter, had been affected with the hallucination that 
toads were crawling all over her body. In treating the 
boy, I dealt with the motor symptoms, saying, "You 
will no longer arch your back at sight of a toad,'' etc. 
After three sittings at which these suggestions were 
made in the waking state, the phobia had disappeared. 



AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 73 

It seemed as if, by stopping the movements expressive 
of fear, I had actually dealt with the cause of the fear. 

But the opponents of the peripheral theory will not 
admit defeat. They can raise two valid objections: 

1. We know that suggestion acts through teleology; 
we know that when the end is proposed, the subconscious 
finds means for the attainment of this end, discovers 
methods for its realization. The emotion, therefore, can 
perfectly well be the cause of the movements. 1 

2. The case given as an example shows that the 
phobia was the outcome of imitation, was derived from 
a suggestion aroused by the sight of the movements ex- 
pressive of fear. In an emotion suggested in this man- 
ner, it is quite possible that the movements in question 
play a preponderant part ; but it does not follow that all 
emotions are explicable in the same way. 

To sum up, the phenomena of suggestion have not, as 
yet, enabled us to solve the problem definitively. But 
we shall clear the issues if we juxtapose the problem of 
the emotions with the problem of affective sensations, 
which has already been studied. 

Emotion, which in greater or less degree always under- 
lies joy or sorrow, is obviously a phenomenon belonging 
to the same psychological category as affective sensa- 
tion — for instance, the painful sensation of weight, of 
fatigue, or of cold. . 

Now when we study affective sensations, we perceive 
that their motor accompaniments play a secondary part, 
and cannot be considered as their cause. On the other 

1 The reader is referred to the example given at the beginning 
of Chapter VIII, Part I (the law of subconscious teleology), 
where an affective state (astonishment) is used as a means for 
realizing a motor suggestion (the crossing of the arms). 



74 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

hand, these sensations can be suggested, just as emotions 
can be suggested, by external things which symbolize 
them, by external things which are not always move- 
ments. To- shrivel up at the thought of cold, to utter a 
guttural "grrr!" are excellent ways of making oneself 
feel chilly when it is really quite warm. The practice 
of muffling oneself up is a no less efficacious means, for, 
even before we hamper the circulation by this practice, 
we thus arouse the idea that the cold is a terrible enemy, 
is a sort of polar bear from which we must protect our- 
selves by elaborate special equipment. Winter, rigged 
out and solemnized in this manner, exercises upon our 
minds a suggestion analogous to that which Pascal dis- 
cerned in the ceremonial robes of the doctors and of all 
the high dignitaries of his day. Nevertheless, the sensa- 
tion of cold is not caused by these trappings, nor yet by 
our shrinking from the cold and by the chattering of 
our teeth. The thermic sense is modelled after the same 
manner as the other senses. We should be wrong to 
imagine that the sensations of heat and cold differ funda- 
mentally in the way they function from the sensations 
of sight and hearing, which latter are obviously not the 
outcome of any bodily movements. But it is perfectly 
true that the movements we make when we shrivel up 
or curl up * from cold, the movements we make when our 
teeth chatter, being intimately associated with the sensa- 
tion of cold, prolonging and expressing that sensation, 
arouse it and tend to suggest it, or to amplify it by 
suggestion if it already exists. 

^his gesture, an ancestral heritage, appears to be the vestige 
of an effective means of defence against cold. But in the con- 
ditions under which we now live, it is unmeaning, and serves 
only to suggest the sensation of cold. 



AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 75 

By analogy we may infer with a high degree of proba- 
bility that the same is true of the emotions, that it is true 
of fear for example. I cannot think that fear, in its 
essential nature, is caused by the motor disturbances 
which are its accompaniments. 1 But as soon as these 
disturbances begin, they suggest to us the fear they 
symbolize. This gives a plausible foundation for the 
peripheral theory, and there can be no doubt that a 
large part of the emotion we feel is caused by suggestions 
of this character. Herein we discover additional proof 
of the important role of suggestion in such cases. 

This role need not surprise us. As we have repeatedly 
had occasion to recognize, emotion favours and power- 
fully reinforces suggestion. Now, when the object of 
suggestion is emotion itself, this emotion which we do 
not begin to feel until we think about it, is nevertheless 
present from the outset in an attenuated form, and en- 
dures throughout the motor process. It never ceases to 
render the motor process more active. Suggestion, here, 
is in a peculiarly favourable position. 

What we have just said concerning the role of motor 
expression in the suggestion of such emotions as fear and 
anger, and in the suggestion of such a sensation as cold, 
enables us at this stage to formulate a practical rule. 
In the case of fear or anger, we should repress the move- 
ments characteristic of these emotions, and should culti- 
vate physical impassibility. / In the case of cold, we 
should adopt an upright and offensive attitude, instead 
of a curled up and defensive or shivery attitude; we 
should do this directly we begin to feel, and even before 
we begin to feel, cold.- In view of the power of sug- 

J The emotion remains peripheral, in this sense, that it usually 
originates in external sensations. 



76 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

gestion in this field, such a veto imposed at the outset 
upon an impending suggestion is of greater importance 
than anyone could imagine who had not made personal 
trial of the method. 1 

1 Concerning the suggestion of emotions by their motor ex- 
pression, Pierre Bovet writes as follows (L'instinct combatif 
Delachaux and Niestle, Neuchatel, 1917) : " Emotion spreads by- 
inducing the imitative reproduction of the gestures which ex- 
press emotion. This enables us to understand why emotion 
spreads more readily in proportion as it is more violent, and why 
a crowd so readily becomes affected with a paroxysm of emo- 
tion." 



CHAPTER FIVE 

AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 

(continued) 
(Sentiments, Tendencies, Passions) 

Suggestion also plays a great part in the life of senti- 
ment. By its nature, sentiment is akin to emotion, be- 
ing differentiated therefrom by its less abrupt and com- 
paratively stable character. Sentiment is more inward 
than emotion; physical changes are less in evidence; 
consequently, it is easier to feign a sentiment like love 
or hate, than to feign an emotion like anger. 

A sentiment, like an image, is characteristically in- 
ternal. As in the case of the image, therefore, it is 
peculiarly true that the idea of a sentiment is already 
the sentiment. This applies even more fully to senti- 
ments than to images (at any rate to visual and auditory 
images, which are the chief images) . The mental image 
of an object seen or of a word heard is, in fact, sus- 
ceptible of analysis into parts. Thus the idea of an 
image may be conceived as consisting of certain salient 
parts of the image, whereas other parts are wanting; 
this is what we have termed a " schema.' ' ■ But the idea 
of fragmentation must not be taken too literally. The 
simplification which leads to the formation of the schema 
resembles the simplification that occurs in the view of 
an object when we see it from a greater distance. It is 
as if, as we move away, the object loses one detail after 
another. 1 The idea or schema of an image differs from 

'Bergson's analysis has shown how artificial is our conception 
of mental phenomena as fragmented, as atomized. 

77 



78 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

that image as the object seen at a distance differs from 
the same object viewed close at hand. Many of the de- 
tails are, as it were, stumped; only in the case of a few 
salient details are the outlines still discernible. Thus, 
in the case of a person's name, we referred to the sound 
of certain consonants, to the number of the letters, etc., 
as elements making up the schema. The schema differs 
from the complete image in that certain of the con- 
stituent parts of the image are lacking in the schema. 

In the case of the sentiment, there is a difference. 
The sentiment is synthetic ; if we) explain it, if we analyze 
it, it loses thereby its primary essence. "If we reason 
about love, we destroy love," writes Tolstoi. Speaking 
generally, the application to sentiment of intellectual 
processes (which are by nature analytical) is destruc- 
tive to sentiment. For sentiment is non-analytical ; it is 
not made up of parts ; it is an indivisible whole, and you 
have to take it or leave it. It follows that the idea of a 
sentiment cannot be the partial revival of the sentiment. 
The difference between the sentiment and the idea of 
the sentiment cannot be a difference of kind; it can 
merely be a difference of degree, of intensity. 

This implies that when we think of a sentiment we do, 
in the strict sense of the term, begin to feel it. 

In these conditions, suggestion is exceptionally easy. 
When the idea of a sentiment lingers in the mind, when 
our attention continually recurs to it, we may look upon 
our idea as a command, as a prophecy; and it is prob- 
able that, in the end, the sentiment will manifest itself 
in full vigour. The fact that we call it up, indicates 
that it is already there. We are reminded of the pro- 
found saying of Pascal : "You would not have sought me 
had you not already found me." 



AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 79 

Nevertheless, it is by insensible degrees that we pass 
from emotion to sentiment. Despite its inwardness, a 
sentiment is accompanied by physical disturbance, which 
is less conspicuous than that which accompanies emotion, 
but is no less real. This disturbance, likewise, is ex- 
ternalized in gesture and in speech. 

It is a commonplace to say that to give expression to 
a sentiment, above all to a painful sentiment, is a relief. 
The term " expression' ' here partially regains its literal 
sense. When we squeeze a wet sponge, we express water 
from it, we get rid of the excess. Some go so far as to 
declare that sentiment can destroy itself through secur- 
ing expression. Goethe tells us that by writing Werther 
he freed himself from a suicidal impulse. In truth, 
however, there is something more at work here than the 
mere fact of expression. There is an imaginary gratifi- 
cation of desire, analogous to the satisfaction that our 
repressed impulses secure in dreams. (The writer of 
Werther, affected with a suicidal impulse, killed himself 
in imagination.) When the expression of a sentiment 
gives relief, a similar mechanism may often be at work. 

I have known persons who, when morally wounded 
by another, immediately responded by invective and in- 
sult (sometimes in all seriousness, and sometimes in a 
tone of assumed pleasantry, but through which anger 
breathed) . They declared that did they fail to give vent 
to their feelings, they would bottle something up, and 
they did not wish to retain any rancour towards one 
dear to them. Here, again, the rancour has been dis- 
charged through finding indirect satisfaction, through 
securing a derivative. 

It may also be contended that the expression of a 
moral smart gives relief, not per se, but through the 



80 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

satisfaction it gives us to gain a hearing, and to find 
sympathizers. 

Possibly, again, when a sentiment reaches paroxysmal 
intensity, its expression is a discharge of tension, as when 
Ariadne bewails Theseus and proclaims her woes to the 
winds and the waves, or as when Victor Hugo declaims 
to the waves on the Jersey coast his anger towards and 
his hatred for the man of the Second of December. 1 

In these cases too, however, I believe that what gives 
relief is not the mere fact of expression, but the dis- 
charge, the indirect satisfaction. We address things 
and animals while personifying them, imagining for the 
moment that they can understand us. Except for the 
poetic terminology, Ariadne does not differ essentially 
from the old maid who confides in her cat, thus gratify- 
ing her need for sympathy. Victor Hugo sublimates 
his rancour and his desire for vengeance. He writes 
Les Chatiments, since he cannot, and indeed would not, 
chastise in reality. Ariadne, having lost the object of 
her love, substitutes the sea for this object. In like 
manner Hugo substitutes the sea for the object of his 
hatred : 

Besides, gloomy ocean, I hate thee. 2 

In a word, it would seem that the fact of expression 
does not in itself constitute the discharge, but that it 

1 1851, the coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon — Translators' 
Note. 

2 A classical instance of transferred emotion. The sea is as- 
sociated in his mind with the prison-ships on which those con- 
demned after the coup d'etat were transported to Cayenne. The 
sea has become the accomplice, the "handmaiden," of the de- 
tested ruler, and is therefore substituted for him as the object 
of hate. 



AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 81 

acts in virtue of some external cause which is inter- 
mingled with the expression (sympathy, derivation). 

On the other hand, the expression of a sentiment, like 
the expression of an emotion, seems to be by its very 
nature eminently suggestive, not merely for others, but 
for the subject himself. According to Pascal, one who 
takes holy water and makes the sign of the cross will 
not fail in the end to become a believer. 

We shall discuss later the role of art, but we may 
enquire here whether it be not the function of art to 
suggest sentiments by giving them expression. Further- 
more (conversely with what happened in the case of the 
author of Werther), it is obvious that in many instances 
the artist intensifies his own sentiment by the mere fact 
of expressing it. A poem is begun in a comparatively 
indifferent emotional state, but by the time he reaches 
the third or fourth stanza the writer's eyes are moist. 
Sometimes the opening stanzas will merely have served 
to suggest a livelier sentiment to the author, and in the 
final revision of the poem they will be suppressed be- 
cause they seem weak and spiritless in comparison with 
those that follow — although they paved the way for these. 
The musician's "prelude," the painter's "study," have 
a similar preparatory role. Sometimes, when the work 
of expression is finished, it comes to exercise the strongest 
suggestive power on the writer. 

There are verses of mine which I wrote without weeping, 
Yet now, on rereading, they move me to tears, 

We are told that Nietzsche, rereading his own Zara- 
thustra, was so strongly moved that he was unable to 
finish the book. 

The domain of art furnishes us with other examples 



82 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

of spontaneous suggestion. I refer to the suggestions 
which control public appreciation, whether favourable 
or unfavourable. People are guided by the critics, by 
fashion, by the comments of the catalogue they glance 
at in front of every picture to learn what they ought to 
feel about it. Quite common is a horror of anything 
that is new in style, a dislike for any work that has not 
been consecrated as a masterpiece. But when this con- 
secration has taken place, people will admire with a 
fervour equal to that with which they have previously 
despised. In others we observe a tendency to rush after 
every novelty, a fondness for the ultrafuturist. Thus 
some find a work beautiful and touching in proportion 
as it is in conformity with the established canons and is 
like everything else, whilst others admire a work and 
are moved by it in proportion as it is unlike everything 
else. And, apart from a few humbugs, the public is in 
either case perfectly sincere. 

There have been epidemics of despair, epidemics of 
suicide. But another thing which shows clearly the 
extent to which sentiments are spread by suggestion, and 
the way in which they affect human collectivities, is the 
existence of a typical sentimentalism in each epoch. 
When a sentiment is genuinely original, when it is the 
true reflection of the individual's personal reactions, it 
naturally differs in persons of different temperaments. 
On the other hand, to-day no less than in former times, 
similar varieties of temperament must exist, and these 
must react in similar ways. But human beings living in 
intimate association react in an almost uniform manner, 
and the general manifestations of sentiment differ from 
age to age. Romanticism was a collective crisis; it 
dominated sentiment for many years, and then gave 



AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 83 

place to a new type of feeling. Such phenomena are 
not wholly explicable by historical happenings, or by 
changes in social conditions. We must rather say that 
the sensibility of one person, or of a few, arouses wide- 
spread suggestive imitation; and it has often been 
pointed out that the whole romanticist movement existed 
by anticipation in Rousseau. In like manner the sensi- 
bility of our own epoch, in certain circles at least, is the 
outcome of strong doses of Nietzschean suggestion — more 
or less distorted. We do not allege that everything can 
be explained by suggestion. We merely wish to reveal 
its presence and to demonstrate its power. Why is one 
model chosen in preference to another ? The reasons for 
such a preference are doubtless complex; but as far 1 as the 
present argument is concerned the important point is 
that people do choose a model, and imitate that model 
without fully realizing that they are doing so. As Bern- 
heim phrased it : " Suggestion is not everything ; but in 
everything there is a suggestive element." 

From sentiments we naturally pass to tendencies 
which, under the form of tastes, inclinations, and pas- 
sions, constitute, as Ribot has shown, the mainspring of 
the affective life, and form the ultimate foundation of 
the sentiments themselves. 

There are a few primordial tendencies, and the func- 
tion of the chief of these is to favour the preservation of 
the individual or the species. Suggestion plays its part, 
sometimes in inhibiting these primitive tendencies, but 
more often in accentuating them; it also promotes the 
development of secondary tendencies grafted upon the 
primary ones. 

The instinct of self-preservation is displayed in a 



84 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

number of tendencies, the chief of which is the nutritive 
impulse. We have seen that this impulse is inhibited in 
fasting men. But sometimes it is accentuated by sug- 
gestion. A person was told one day that his appetite 
was immoderate, and that he must certainly have a tape- 
worm ; aware, henceforward, of the voracity of the imag- 
inary tapeworm, his consumption of food, already twice 
that of an ordinary mortal, was now fourfold. 

In this field, an example of secondary tendencies is 
furnished by the preferences we show for certain foods, 
and the dislike we feel for others. Some of these tastes 
are natural manifestations of individual temperaments; 
but most of them are simply due to suggestion, and are 
all the more imperious on that account. The subject 
declares he cannot overcome his like or his dislike; and 
he is in fact enslaved by it precisely in proportion to the 
degree to which he believes himself enslaved — but no 
more. He " can't bear the smell" of a particular spice, 
and yet he will go into ecstasies over the flavour of a 
sauce containing this very spice, when he does not know 
it is one of the ingredients. 

How do we form our tastes as a rule? Let us remem- 
ber, first of all, that we generally form them in early 
childhood, the preeminently suggestible age, when we 
see flying bells (see p. 62), and when our mother's 
breath will cure a pain. Just as in the case of the boy 
in whom a terror of toads was aroused by imitation, it 
will be enough for a child to see an adult display disgust 
for any article of diet. Henceforward the child will 
likewise find it disgusting. Children, moveover, incline 
to like everything that those whom they are fond of like. 
But if you are in a child's black books, he will detest 
whatever you say, whatever you do, and whatever you 



AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 85 

like. A child is in the sulks and does not want to eat 
his soup ; if now you unfortunately say that the soup is 
good, the child, who is at odds with you, interprets your 
saying by contraries, and may even take a permanent 
dislike to that particular soup. 

These remarks do not apply to alimentary tastes alone. 
Carl Spitteler, in his Premiers souvenirs, writes as fol- 
lows concerning a picture he possessed in childhood: 

"Among the animals, I was particularly fond of the 
spotted hyena, whereas I had an unmeasured contempt 
for the striped hyena. The cassowary was one of my 
favourites; I greatly preferred it to the ostrich, for I 
considered that the latter bird suffered from overween- 
ing vanity. These sentiments were the outcome of my 
caprice. You are always talking about the striped hyena, 
and that is a good reason for my passion for the spotted 
hyena. Everyone insists upon the importance of the 
ostrich. Well, to me it seems a stupid bird; and my 
heart goes out to the cassowary, which you despise." 

Unlike Carl Spitteler, most of us are unable to re- 
member the origin of our tastes, and we therefore be- 
lieve them to be innate and ineradicable. Nevertheless, 
some of our tastes do not even date from childhood, and 
yet their origin is suggestive. After too hearty a 
dinner, or one day when our stomach is a little out of 
order, we eat for dessert something we have always 
liked. Henceforward we find it unpalatable. We think 
our taste has altered, and from this date it has in fact 
altered. When we partake of a dish that is new to us, 
our attitude towards it is usually determined by similar 
reasons, and promptly the dish is classed among thoso 
we like or among those we dislike. Nay more, there are 
some who "know beforehand" that they will not like this 



86 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

or that. Naturally these are among the prophecies that 
bring their own fulfilment. Above all will this ensue if 
others at table have insisted on the prophet 's tasting the 
undesired food, for then his vanity and obstinacy come 
into play. With tastes as with opinions, adverse dis- 
cussion strengthens them. 

It is well known, finally, that the far-fetched names 
with which, in restaurants, commonplace dishes are 
christened, have a powerful influence in promoting 
gustatory satisfaction. 

There are certain perverse impulses, derived from the 
nutritive impulse and developed by suggestion. These 
range from coprophagia, or the impulse to eat excrement, 
to drunkenness, which is scarcely less disgusting. To 
this subject we shall return. 

When a tendency becomes greatly accentuated, we 
speak of it as a passion. This is exclusive; it occupies 
the entire being; it is an affective obsession, and sug- 
gestion plays the part that it plays in all obsessions. 
Before it, we are passive, we are astounded at our own 
weakness, and this makes us yet weaker and yet more 
passive. 

Passion has been compared to a fixed idea. Charles 
Renouvier has thoughtfully termed it " mental vertigo.' j 
In any case, when we wish to compare passion with other 
psychological phenomena, it is the phenomena of sug- 
gestion which present themselves to the mind. In the 
struggle against passion, we once more recognize the 
futility of effort when this effort is directed in a sense 
opposed to that of the dominant obsession. The stronger 
the effort, the less effective it is. As soon as we have 
realized this fatality, the vertigo becomes accentuated; 



AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 87 

it is as if we had to do with a falling body, which 
traverses distances proportional to the squares of the 
times occupied since the beginning of the fall. It is only 
the first step which is difficult. Thereafter, the rapid 
fall seems to carry us away. That is why ' ' one must not 
trifle with love.'' 

To express a sentiment one does not feel, is not al- 
ways to lie, for he who expresses a sentiment begins to 
feel it. And by reiterating the expression of the senti- 
ment, one may inflame it to a passion. Like the liar who 
ends by believing his own falsehoods, we are caught in 
our own snare. ' ' By talking of love, ' ' says Pascal, 1 ' ' we 
fall in love. It's the easiest thing in the world. " And 
later he writes : ' ' One can hardly feign love without be- 
ing very near to being in love, or at least to being in love 
somewhere; for this simulation is not possible without 
having the mind and the thoughts of love." It is al- 
ways the same principle: "You would not have sought 
me had you not already found me." 

Whatever may have been the primary origin of a 
passion, we may affirm that its most conspicuous char- 
acter, that from which its name is derived, its passivity 
(or rather our passivity in relation to it), is consider- 
ably intensified by spontaneous suggestion. 

Furthermore, the very origin of the passion is in most 
cases an imitative suggestion. Like the well-to-do idler 
who studies his own symptoms until he succeeds in dis- 
covering in himself indications of all the ills that flesh 
is heir to, the adolescent, giving free rein to his wander- 
ing thoughts, discovers in himself the symptoms of the 
passion of which he has read so many descriptions. The 
schoolboy recalls the great passions he has studied, that 
1 Discours sur les passions de l'amour. 



88 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

of Phedre, that of " Venus, wholly devoted to running 
down her quarry"; the girl in the convent school im- 
personates herself as the heroine of some idyll written for 
such readers as herself, she is the Clara d'Ellebeuse 1 
whose old-fashioned and false idealism arouses the 
ironical amusement of Francis Jammes; the little serv- 
ant maid enjoying her first experience of town life, sees 
everything in the light thrown by sixpenny sensational 
novels; the street arab's views on life and passion are 
derived from the cinemas, which allure him by the pres- 
entation of figures superhuman in stature but sub- 
human in soul, the cinemas whose perverse suggestions 
are a social danger to-day. Each lad and each lass sug- 
gests to himself or to herself the form of passion which 
has presented itself to his or her imagination. Each is 
stamped, often for life, with the imprint of these early 
suggestions. 

" Great passion,' ' wrote Brunetiere, "is as rare as 
great genius." As a rule, in fact, passion is a mere 
imitation, an unconscious counterfeit. Religious pas- 
sions (as in the sixteenth century), patriotic passions 
(as to-day), flourish by crises, by epidemics. There is a 
passion of the century, just as there is the comet of a 
season, just as there is the latest craze or the fashionable 
dish. Unfortunately, the fashionable dish is often spiced 
with poison. 

This discloses the enormous part played by spontane- 
ous suggestion in the affective life. "Do you mean to 
imply," the objector will exclaim, "that all our senti- 

1 Clara d'Ellebeuse is a heroine of insipid romance of the type 
known as " romans pour jeunes filles." Such books were 
favourite school prizes in the fifties of the last century. — Trans- 
lators' Note. 



AFFECTIVE SUGGESTIONS 89 

ments, all our tastes, all our passions, or nearly all, are 
illusory ?" We foresee that the preceding pages will at 
first leave this impression, but it is a false impression. 
It arises from the fact that the starting-point of sug- 
gestion is imaginative, and that we are apt to look upon 
the imagination as the faculty of illusions, as "the mis- 
tress of errors. ' ' This is one aspect of imagination, but 
it is not the only aspect. If we deliberately confound 
suggestion and illusion, we do so precisely because we 
ignore the great power of suggestion, a power which it 
is our present business to realize. We shall see clearly 
in the sequel that this power is creative, that it brings 
into existence the most tangible realities, such as bodily 
modifications. But, when we think the matter over 
carefully, we recognize that this creative power is equally 
manifest in affective suggestion. 

The outcome of suggestion may be a state which is in 
certain respects illusory, as for example when judgments 
of things are in question. A true judgment must con- 
form to the external reality to which it relates. Its truth 
contains an objective element. If I suggest to myself 
that the earth is square, and end by believing it to be 
square, it is true that I believe it, but it does not follow 
that the earth really is square, for I am the victim of 
illusion. A sentiment, on the other hand, is purely sub- 
jective. Its whole reality is in itself and in us. When 
I think that I suffer, I do really suffer; there are no 
imaginary ills, if by imaginary we mean illusory. A 
sentiment, a passion, may be the result of suggestion; 
but they are none the less real. Their essence is to be 
felt, and felt they are. Therein lies their full reality. 
Suggestion has veritably created something, for it has 
given life to a self -sufficient entity. 



90 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

When a cause which we regard as insignificant brings 
into existence an effect which we know to be consider- 
able, we must not allow ourselves to depreciate the effect 
because of our estimate of the cause. On the contrary, 
we must revise our estimate of the cause, and recognize 
its high potency. 



CHAPTER SIX 

ACTIVE OR MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 

(Habits, Mediumistic Phenomena; Sayings and Doings, 
Happenings) 

In the tendency, we have the natural stepping-stone 
from the affective life to the active life. Every tendency 
desires to externalize itself in action. This brings us to 
the domain of motor phenomena, where suggestion is ex- 
pressed by the schematic formula : 
>J The idea of a movement gives birth to this movement. 

In practice, moreover, we have as a rule to do, not 
with a single movement, but with a whole series of 
movements organized upon a teleological and synthetic 
principle. 

In the last chapter we referred to the perverse tend- 
ency known as drunkenness. This tendency is not 
fully developed unless it culminates in the act of drink- 
ing. Nay more, we can only speak of a passion for 
drink when the acts leading to intoxication are fre- 
quently repeated, so that we have, more or less, to do 
with a habit. As with every habit, the same thing 
happens as when a piece of cloth takes a fold. The 
frequent repetition of the action facilitates the par- 
ticular motor discharge; one who has drunk often, will 
go on drinking. Now we do not wish to assimilate habit 
to suggestion ; we must continue to employ the word sug- 
gestion in the restricted sense we have given to it. 
Nevertheless, if habit be not identical with suggestion, 

91 



92 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

the latter is terribly potent in promoting the acquire- 
ment of the former. Above all, in the case of drinking, 
for instance, suggestion tends to impress upon the prac- 
tice that irresistible and "passionate" character which 
is typical of what we term drunkenness. The patient, 
because he has already yielded to his craving, fears that 
he will yield once more, and this contributes to his re- 
peated falls. The more often his better will has been 
frustrated in the past, the less his power of resistance 
in the future. Furthermore, the state of intoxication, 
like that of reverie, is a state wherein mental control is 
slackened, wherein the subconscious dominates the mind. 
Now, as we shall show later, such a state is peculiarly 
favourable to suggestion. The images which are im- 
pressed upon the mind under such conditions have every 
chance of bearing fruit; and since in this case the 
images are those of drinking bouts, of glasses filled and 
drained, images associated with a feeling of enjoyment, 
we may say that every drinking bout is a suggestion of 
future intoxication. In addition, as always happens in 
cases of this kind, effort has a purely negative result, 
and this contributes increasingly to depress the subject. 

An analogous process is at work in the passion for 
opium or morphine, in that for ether, and in that for 
tobacco. All of these, in varying degree, are likewise 
sustained by the s^tate of intoxication which the various 
narcotics induce ; or, to speak more strictly, by the auto- 
suggestion which the state of intoxication facilitates. 

The same considerations apply to the abuse of the 
sexual instinct, whether in normal heterosexual inter- 
course or in masturbation. 

All these bad habits, from the most serious ones, like 
cleptomania, to the most trifling, like nail-biting, are 



ACTIVE OR MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 93 

sustained and aggravated by spontaneous autosugges- 
tion. It has frequently been pointed out that bad habits 
are much more easily contracted than good ones. This 
should suffice, I think, to prove that in the former case 
suggestion is at work. For the difference is that in the 
case of the bad habits we usually wish to strive against 
them, and this, as always happens with suggestion, is an 
infallible method for engulfing us more hopelessly in the 
quicksand. Despite the aphorism "who wills, can," we 
have to do here with cases wherein effort is invariably 
self-defeated, eventuating always in the opposite of what 
is desired. This happens because the idea, the sugges- 
tion, of powerlessness dominates the mind, and because 
the effort will always be transformed in the sense of the 
dominant idea. 

Those under the rule of passion, from lovers who de- 
sire to be free from the thraldom of love, to drunkards 
who long to be free from the thraldom of drink, have in 
all ages derided the vanity of effort. When, in every 
variety of tone, they are assured that who wills can, 
they feel that they are not understood, and they turn 
away shrugging their shoulders. They are perfectly 
right. It is another cure that they need, and what the 
cure is we shall learn in due course. 

In the sphere of movement, suggestion by imitation 
is common. Immoderate laughter readily spreads 
through a crowd; yawning is con+ o gious. If we asso- 
ciate with a person suffering from a habitual nervous 
movement, we are apt to acquire it ourselves. The 
rhythmical gait of our companion on a walk leads us 
insensibly to keep step with him. 

During a conversation we discover that our hand, 



94 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

holding a pencil, is engaged in writing, "mechanically" 
as we say, i. e. subconsciously, some phrase which was 
uttered several minutes before; or it is drawing some 
object which lias been within our range of vision, but 
which we do not even remember having noticed. The 
auditory image of the words heard, the visual image of 
the object seen, have been transformed into movement. 
For such images are motor images. Painters, without 
being consciously metaphorical, speak of the movement 
of a line; and in like manner, musicians speak of the 
movement of a melody. This is not the place to explain 
the physiological grounds for the complex nature of the 
images in question. Suffice it to point out that a motor 
image, evoked by a visual or auditory image with which 
it constitutes a united whole, has stimulated the brain; 
in the subconscious it has then been transformed into a 
real movement, or rather into a complicated series of 
intelligent and coordinated movements. 

We have had occasion to refer to hallucinations which 
astonish the subject because their cause is unperceived, 
and which are nevertheless suggestions whose first phase 
has been subconscious. We even come across cases of 
subconscious [automatic] writing which is the outcome 
neither of the words of a recent conversation nor yet of 
any series of images actually present to the senses or of 
recent occurrence. Still, as Flournoy has well shown, in 
many of these cases the process can be reconstructed, and 
we then learn that here also we have to do with a sugges- 
tion of which the first phase (the verbal-motor image) is 
subconscious. The hand writes phrases which the sub- 
ject has not foreseen, which astonish him, which conflict 
with his conscious tastes and his conscious ideas, and 
which none the less emanate from the depths of his being. 



ACTIVE OR MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 95 

Many cases in which we might have been inclined to sus- 
pect * ' mediumism, " i. e. the operation of a mind other 
than that of the subject, thus prove reducible to mani- 
festations of "spontaneous" autosuggestion. 

The phenomena of table-turning, likewise, are in many 
instances reducible by analysis to suggestions of this 
order. Often enough, the results of table-turning bring 
us back to the elementary case of the pencil which traces 
a word that has just been heard or sketches an object 
actually in the field of vision. Take for example the fol- 
lowing record, made by a good observer actually present 
at the seance : 

"We are seated at the table; our hands resting on it 
form a chain; for a time nothing happens. Suddenly, 
one of the legs of the table rises, beats out nine strokes 
at regular intervals, and then all is quiet again. Not 
until some time later do more complex phenomena begin. 
A moment after the nine strokes have been made, I 
glance at the clock, quite by chance, and I see that it has 
just struck nine. ,, 

Apparently the auditory image of the nine strokes of 
the clock, occurring in a profound silence and when the 
minds of the sitters were passive, was able, in the void 
as it were, freely to develop its motor accompaniments. 
The associated motor images were transformed! into move- 
ment in the auditors, or at least in the most sensitive 
among the auditors (the medium) ; by the instrumental- 
ity of the hands, the subconscious movement was trans- 
mitted to the table. 

This shows us, in passing, how much caution is requi- 
site in the study of spiritualistic phenomena. Their 
analysis is exceptionally difficult, seeing that the greater 
part of the process is subconscious. But I am of opinion 



96 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

that the methods of psychoanalysis (as applied to the 
fragmented hallucinations of the lad Amedee) can throw 
much light on such phenomena, for the primary object 
of psychoanalysis is, by indirect means, to open a way 
into the subconscious. Amedee 's hallucination is closely 
analogous to the phenomena to which allusion has just 
been made; the difference being that in the latter case 
the suggestion was motor, whereas in Amedee the sug- 
gestion was representative. 

A spiritualistic seance is extremely favourable to the 
working of spontaneous suggestion, and this for three 
reasons. In the first place, a condition of mental relax- 
ation is imposed upon the participants. Secondly, an 
emotional state is invariably aroused by approximation 
to the mysterious. Thirdly, there exists an expectation 
that remarkable things will happen. 

Spontaneous suggestion manifests itself, not merely 
in the production of trifling movements, but also in the 
initiation of complicated actions ; it takes effect, not only 
in the formation of isolated habits, but likewise in its 
influence upon character, which is a bundle of mental 
habits. 

More or less unconscious actions, due to involuntary 
imitation, are of frequent occurrence. We have the poor 
sheep of Panurge; and we have heroic charges in the 
battlefield. In the latter case, the intoxication of the 
firing, of the clamour, and sometimes of alcohol system- 
atically distributed, induce the requisite hypnoid state. 
In a cavalry charge, the horses are subject to it no less 
than the men. 

In so far as imitation is not fully conscious and delib- 
erate, it is invariably a manifestation of suggestion. The 
child, in most cases, has no idea why he chooses to play 



ACTIVE OR MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 97 

one game or another, but the idea is implanted in his 
mind by imitation. He does what he has seen others do, 
though he has sometimes forgotten having seen them. 1 

A year or two ago I carved a device on a tree. 

.The tree has made it its own, and thinks that it improvises. 2 

We all resemble that tree. And like the tree, between 
one year and the next we have grown; the device, the 
imprint, let us say the image graven upon our minds, has 
grown likewise in the subconscious. A slight trace made 
upon our life in childhood will in later days become a 
deep impression. We tend to act as we have seen others 
act, above all when the model has been forgotten. So 
long as we still remember our model, we know that we 
are imitating when we do as the model did. We know 
that the action does not emanate from ourselves, and be- 
fore doing it we supervise the intention and discuss it. 
But when the model has been submerged in the subcon- 
scious, we imitate while thinking we " improvise,' ' and 
we no longer discuss. Or, if we do discuss, the subcon- 
scious, teleological as ever, provides us with all kinds of 
excellent reasons for doing what it wishes us to do, when 
the only real reason is the presence in the subconscious 
of an image or a system of images which the conscious 
mind knows nothing of. 

Psychoanalysis, though a very recent development, 
has already clearly revealed the action of suggestions 
which date from early childhood, their action upon the 
subject 's whole life, upon his character, upon his innocu- 
ous or dangerous manias. It is no longer possible to 

1 Cf . Bovet, I/instinct combatif— the chapter on the part played 
by example. 
8 Victor Hugo. 



98 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

doubt that for most of us the choice of a career is deter- 
mined by infantile suggestions, which are often masked 
by the operation of the strange law of transference, but 
which are none the less discoverable. Furthermore, 
these are not simply motor suggestions, for with them 
are mingled affective elements. We tend to imitate what 
we like or what we admire. The dazzling epaulets of an 
indulgent uncle will, twenty years later, lead the nephew 
to embrace a military career, believing it to be "in the 
blood." An only child, whose parents are elderly and 
who have retired from active life, will perhaps know no 
other world than that of the school, and will perhaps ad- 
mire no other dignity than that of the schoolmaster; 
these circumstances determine his choice of a profession ; 
but after he has himself become a schoolmaster he is 
greatly astonished when psychoanalysis reveals to him 
the real reasons for his adoption of this " calling." 

Psychoanalysis has clearly demonstrated that the phe- 
nomena and doings of everyday life, the utterances made 
in the most casual conversation, are powerful revealers 
of what, quite unknown to the subject, is going on in the 
subconscious. These phenomena, these doings, these ut- 
terances, are a clue to all that is most vigorously cen- 
sored, to all that is hidden in the abysses of the mind ; in 
especial are they this when they are least subject to our 
conscious supervision. Regis and Hesnard ' give a num- 
ber of examples taken from the various authors who 
originated this method. 

"A well-bred man enters a room and greets everyone 
politely, with one exception, which is quite unconscious. 
Now the person overlooked is the son of a man of busi- 

*Op. cit 



ACTIVE OR MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 99 

ness who has refused the newcomer 's services as commis- 
sion agent. 

i * Here are other examples : mistaking the hour of the 
train in a journey taken unwillingly ; losing a present 
given by a friend with whom one has quarrelled ; forget- 
ting the name of a friend whose image is associated in 
our mind with that of someone whom we dislike ; the in- 
voluntary spoiling of an object when we should like to 
replace it by a new one. In the same category come 
involuntary exclamations, blunders made from absence 
of mind, and the saying of 'yes' for 'no' when our real 
thought is in opposition with what we wish to say. Dur- 
ing a psychoanalysis where sexual errors are in question, 
to play with a money-box may reveal a habit of mastur- 
bation. Every gesture of the patient under examination 
must be carefully noted, for every gesture may be a 
significant symptom. 1 

" Undesirable actions of a very grave character may be 
the work of the unconscious. Freud believes that in 
many cases death from accident, rashness, mistake, etc., 
is in reality an involuntary suicide dependent upon a 
complex." 2 

This proves that our ordinary sayings and doings are 
intimately related to our subconscious, and continually 
betray its thoughts. If we compare the censorship to a 

*When collated with the results of other psychoanalytic meth- 
ods (the study of dreams, reminiscences, etc.). Thus only can 
chance coincidences be excluded. 

2 It is possible that the death of Verhaeren, the great Belgian 
poet, was of this character. He was killed by a train in Amiens 
station. Again and again he had sung the horror and the beauty 
of railway trains, in language which reveals a very profound 
complex. 



100 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

dam which retains a mass of mental material within the 
subconscious, we may say that spiritualistic manifesta- 
tions, and hallucinations like those of Amedee, are the 
result of sudden breaches in this dam, the outcome of 
irruptions from the subconscious into the conscious. But 
the before-mentioned casual everyday sayings and doings 
are the expression of the continual escape of surplus en- 
ergy from the subconscious, by way of the channels pro- 
vided for normal overflow. If this be so (and psycho- 
analysis proves that it is so), we may infer that sugges- 
tions, in the second phase of their activity, having accu- 
mulated in the subconscious, must unceasingly utilize 
this means of escape in order to secure fulfilment. Since 
their action is teleological, and since to them all means 
are good which promote the attainment of the goal, we 
can foresee that from moment to moment they will in- 
spire in us the movements, the actions, and the words 
which tend towards the ends in view, which favour real- 
ization. 1 Henceforward, everything must happen as if 
suggestion were in command of events. When we set 
out to do something with the preconceived idea, or with 
the fear, that we shall be unable to do it, everything will 
happen as if we were trying not to succeed. Unwit- 
tingly to ourselves, our dominant idea will inspire all the 
sayings and all the doings that are necessary to counter- 
act our ostensible purpose. Nay more, in virtue of the 
law to which we have frequently referred, the stronger 
the efforts we make for success, the more unmistakably 

*If the subconscious, as other facts suggest, is in possession 
of knowledge and of memories unknown by the conscious self, 
we can be sure that the subconscious will display remarkable 
sagacity in the choice of means of this character. Extraordi- 
narily accurate realizations will ensue. 



ACTIVE OR MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 101 

shall we favour failure. And thus it goes throughout 
life. 

A posteriori, experience teaches that things happen 
just as we have described. American writers are fully- 
convinced of the fact by direct and practical observation 
of social life. 

Emerson, the great pioneer in preaching the gospel of 
moral force, wrote as follows in days when the doctrine 
of suggestion was still unknown : 

"He [man] thinks his fate alien because the copula 
[between person and event] is hidden. But the soul 
contains the event that shall befall it; for the event is 
only the actualization of its thoughts, and what we pray 
to ourselves for is always granted. The event is the 
print of your form. It fits you like your skin. . . . 
A man will see his character emitted in the events that 
seem to meet, but which exude from and accompany him. 
Events expand with the character. ' ' ' 

By recent American writers this idea has been devel- 
oped into a veritable system. 2 

Orison Swett Marden, in his highly figurative lan- 
guage, writes as follows: 

" To be ambitious for wealth and yet always expecting 
to be poor, to be always doubting your ability to get what 
you long for, is like trying to reach east by travelling 
west. There is no philosophy which will help a man to 
succeed when he is always doubting his ability to do so, 
and thus attracting failure. . . . 

1 Emerson, The Conduct of Life, Chapter I, Fate, Riverside 
Edition, Routledge, London, 1883, pp. 43 and 45. 

2 These authors, who often wander into the region of mysti- 
cism, have founded a school which is transitional between the 
first Nancy school and the New Nancy School. 



102 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

1 ' You will go in the direction in' which you face. . . . 

"There is a saying that every time the sheep bleats it 
loses a mouthful of hay. Every time you allow yourself 
to complain of your lot, to say ' I am poor ; I can never 
do what others do; I shall never be rich; I have not 
the ability that others have; I am a failure; luck is 
against me, ' you are laying up so much trouble for your- 
self. . . . 

"No matter how hard you may work for success, if 
your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will 
kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavours, and make 
success impossible. ' ' * 

Herbert Parkyn explains these phenomena as follows : 

"You may dislike a person, but for reasons politic 
you determine not to show your dislike. You may even 
go out of your way in an endeavour to make yourself 
agreeable to the object of your dislike ; still in some way 
or other a coldness will spring up between you, and the 
dislike becomes mutual and may end in an open rupture 
without either person being able to explain how the dis- 
like was uncovered. The explanation is simple. Thought 
takes form in action, and the dislike will so influence 
your actions that you will betray yourself by a look or a 
nudge or some other unconscious slight. The action 
may be wholly involuntary or unconscious on your part, 
and it may be just as unconsciously noticed on the part 
of the other person ; but his involuntary mind takes cog- 
nizance of the action, the seed of discord is sown in his 
mind also, and the damage is done. 

"Similarly you may cherish a strong desire to go some- 
where, to do something, or to possess something. You 

1 0. S. Marden, The Miracle of Right Thought, Rider, I<ondon, 
IQI3, PP. 46-8. 



ACTIVE OR MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 103 

may not deem your desire reasonable nor within the 
realm of possibility at the time, but your actions, con- 
versations, and decisions will be influenced by this desire 
in various ways. Although it may take years for you to 
gratify your desire, still that desire is usually gratified 
by the opening up of ways and means, and this opening 
up, although it may appear accidental, is, nine times out 
of ten, the direct result of actions unconsciously per- 
formed through the promptings of your desire." 1 

Strictly speaking, however, these phenomena might be 
regarded as no more than coincidences, and the above 
explanation might be looked upon as nothing better than 
a plausible hypothesis. But as soon as we compare them 
with the precise interpretations of psychoanalysis, the 
gap is filled and the doubt vanishes. 

We now understand how our own mental attitude 
leads to success or failure. We grasp the secret of 
"luck," good or bad; and we realize why those who be- 
lieve in their fortunate or unfortunate star are rarely 
given the lie by the facts. This fatality exists, but it is 
internal and not external ; just as the fatality of a habit 
or a passion is internal when we wish to overcome it but 
are unable to do so. We hold the key to this determin- 
ism. As soon as we know how to make use of the key, 
we escape from the dominance of fate, we win freedom. 
Our star is in ourselves, and upon ourselves does it de- 
pend whether the star is lucky or unlucky. 

*Op. cit. pp, 113, 114. 



CHAPTER SEVEN 

MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 

(continued) 

(Functional and Organic Modifications, Maternal 
Impressions, Cures) 

All the motor suggestions hitherto considered are re- 
lated to movements which can be carried out under the 
full control of the conscious self. Suggestion here does 
no more than follow the path trodden by the will. In 
many instances, identical phenomena can be voluntarily 
reproduced. We may feign to yawn; the actress who 
plays the part of Juliet's nurse learns to laugh immod- 
erately. In the case of mediumistic phenomena (auto- 
matic writing, for instance), the subject may cheat. 

There are, however, other motor autosuggestions which 
act on muscles that are not subject to the control of the 
conscious will, the muscles which regulate (or fail to 
regulate) the visceral functions. The same remark ap- 
plies to those imperceptible movements on which the 
most profound organic modifications depend. Sugges- 
tions of this category, methodically applied in the form 
of reflective or induced suggestions, constitute the basis 
of psychotherapeutics, of a system of psychotherapy 
characterized by extreme potency, compared with which 
all that has hitherto been effected by ordinary hypnotic 
suggestion will soon appear to have been of a very ele- 
mentary order. Indeed, to those who have closely fol- 

104 



MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 105 

lowed the latest acquirements of the New Nancy School, 
it is already plain that ordinary hypnotism represents 
merely the infantile stage of the art of psychothera- 
peutics. 

In all ages, unofficial healers have obtained remarkable 
results in cases where orthodox medical skill has failed. 
This gives cause for thought. How do these healers 
effect their cures? They do not directly apply sugges- 
tion as ordinarily understood ; but they are backed by a 
great reputation, due to chance or to legend ; people be- 
lieve in them; and they make use of fantastic methods, 
whose strangeness and illogicality arouse a sense of the 
marvellous, producing in the patient an emotional state 
which facilitates the working of autosuggestion. In 
these conditions, faith cures. 

We have no right to deny the reality of "animal mag- 
netism,'' or to deny the curative effects of "absent 
treatment," but there can be no question that many of 
the cures attributed to animal magnetism or to absent 
treatment are in truth the outcome of spontaneous auto- 
suggestion. 

Coue has proved this over and over again. Telling a 
patient that he will think of him every evening at a fixed 
hour, he requests the sick man to collect his thoughts at 
the specified time, and to put himself in mental rapport 
with his doctor. The value of the treatment, he is told, 
will speedily become apparent. The patient obeys or- 
ders. At the appointed hour, Coue is gardening or fish- 
ing. Nevertheless, after a few "sittings, ' ' a cure ensues. 
Sometimes it deserves to be called a " miraculous' ' cure. 

At the outset of his studies, Coue tells me, he noted the 
cure of an extremely refractory illness, when the patient, 
on his advice, took a new patent medicine. Greatly 



106 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

astonished at the result, he analyzed the medicine, and 
found that it was a harmless compost, whose whole value 
was based upon skilful puffery — and above all, as he 
learned in the sequel, upon the involuntary eloquence 
with which he himself had advised the use of the remedy 
and upon the patient's confidence in him and his word. 
Hence germinated in his mind the idea that suggestive 
treatment might prove valuable in organic maladies. 
This idea was to be independently confirmed by the work 
of Bon jour, of Lausanne. 

Warts' are peculiarly responsive to autosuggestion; 
and it was to warts, in this connection, that Bon jour 
first devoted his attention. In the Swiss canton of Vaud, 
curers of warts abound; and here it sometimes happens 
that the patient will employ a famous prescription with- 
out troubling to consult the healer. In these cases, auto- 
suggestion is seen in all its beauty. Prescriptions pass 
from village to village and from hamlet to hamlet. Some 
of them are incredibly quaint. For example, to cause 
warts, the subject goes out one evening, moistens the tip 
of the finger, looks at a star, and simultaneously applies 
the wet finger-tip to the other hand. The operation is 
repeated, the finger being freshly moistened with saliva 
each time, while the subject counts "one, two, 
three . . ," up to the number of warts desired. 
Now, wherever the moistened finger-tip has been applied, 
a wart duly appears. I do not guarantee the alleged 
numerical precision, but the development of warts as a 
sequel of such practices is a proved fact. The Vaudois 
girls are very fond of this amusement — not for the mere 
pleasure of having warts (for the pleasure of their pos- 
session is certainly open to dispute) , but for a pleasure 
which to them is very real and very great, the pleasure 



MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 107 

of passing them on to someone else. A ribbon is tied 
round the affected hand, and is knotted as many times as 
there are warts on the hand ; then the ribbon is dropped 
on the highway. Whoever picks it up and unties the 
knots, will get the warts, and the original owner of the 
warts will be cured. Another prescription, equally effi- 
cacious, is to rub the warts with a piece of bacon rind, 
which is subsequently placed beneath a stone, on damp 
ground. As soon as the bacon rind is rotten, the warts 
will be cured. But if, by bad luck, someone moves the 
stone, one has wasted one's pains and one's bacon rind, 
and one must begin all over again. 

In the same canton, persons suffering from dropsy are 
cured by lying on two mattresses between which some 
toads have been placed. 

The value of such methods depends upon their illogi- 
cality, their strangeness, which strikes the imagination 
of the simple, monopolizes the attention, and fills the 
mind with a sense of mystery. 

To close this series of laughable examples, I will quote 
a picturesque case reported by Gillet, one of Coue's 
pupils. An asthmatic, on a holiday journey, was awak- 
ened in his hotel by a violent paroxysm of the disease. 

"Greatly distressed for breath, he got out, of bed and 
hunted for the matches. He had a craving for fresh air, 
but could not find the window. 'Confound these third- 
rate hotels, where one gropes vainly in the dark!' He 
is suffocating, and he clamours for air. Feeling about, 
he at length finds a pane of glass. 'Damn it all, where 's 
the window-bolt? . . . Never mind, this will do!' 
and he breaks the pane. The fragments fall to the floor. 
Now he can breathe; again and again he fills his chest 
with the fresh air ; the throbbing at his temples passes, 



108 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

and he goes back to bed. 'Saved!' . . . Next 
morning, one of the items in his bill was, ' Broken clock- 
case, fr. 4.35.'" * 

More extensive modifications, such as can only be 
effected by a considerable amount of work within the 
organism, are presented by the cases (now beyond dis- 
pute) in which the imagination of the mother influences 
the foetus. 

Observers worthy of the utmost confidence, from Dar- 
win to Liebault, have in this connection reported definite 
data, which must be regarded as classical. Darwin re- 
cords that a child resembled in every feature a girl of 
the neighbourhood to whom the father had been making 
love during the mother's pregnancy. Liebault mentions 
the case of a vinedresser who was exactly like a statue in 
the village church, the statue of the patron saint of the 
village. During her pregnancy, the man's mother had 
been obsessed with the idea that this would happen. But 
I propose to quote the detailed account of a recent in- 
stance recorded by Artault : 

" During the second month of her pregnancy, a young 
woman was visited by a friend of her husband. She had 
never seen the man before (your readers are so sceptical, 
that I must be precise on this point) . She was greatly 
struck by a malformation in the nail of his left forefin- 
ger. The nail was thick and curved, so that it was like 
a lion's claw. The deformity was the sequel of an ordi- 
nary accident, in which the terminal phalanx of the fore- 
finger had been crushed. The young woman's mind be- 
came obsessed by this deformity. The friend was stay- 
ing in the neighbourhood for several months, and every 

1 Gillet, Iy'auto-suggestion, Bulletin Ecole de Nancy, 1913. 



MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 109 

time he came to dinner the expectant mother was unable 
to take her eyes off the finger, for she was terrified lest 
her child should be born with a similar finger-nail. She 
was haunted by the fear to such an extent that her hus- 
band in the end begged his friend to wear a glove when 
the wife was present. But, alas, the impression on the 
foetus had already been made, and when the baby was 
born at term (once more, I am precise) the left index 
finger had a claw like that of the unlucky visitor. The 
child was a girl whom I see very often. Whenever I 
look at her clawed finger, I compare it mentally with that 
of the model, whom I have also seen. Before the experi- 
mental certainty of this instance of maternal impres- 
sions, which is on quite a different plane from old wives' 
tales of birthmarks, I smile at systematized incredulity. 
I am unable to explain it, but I record it. ' ' * 

In recording facts of this nature it is usual to insist 
upon a fixed idea, a haunting, an obsession, as the start- 
ing-point. The mother's spontaneous attention has been 
obstinately fixed on an image, and by a delicate and 
complicated motor process this image is realized within 
the organism. There can be no doubt that the occur- 
rence is favoured by the heightened emotional suscepti- 
bility characteristic of pregnancy. If we compare sug- 
gestions of this order with those realized during hypnotic 
sleep (such as the case reported in the Introduction), we 
see that whereas we were formerly concerned with func- 
tional changes, we now have to do with organic changes. 
Here, then, autosuggestion is at work in all its power. 

Analogous phenomena, though less marked for the 
most part, are observed in connection with a great many 
births. We are no longer entitled to attribute them to 
1 Artault J Chronique medicale. 



110 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

mere coincidence. We must rather hold that nothing 
more is requisite to produce them than an abnormal or 
exceptionally sensitive temperament. Once more, it is 
the task of psychoanalysis to verify the hypothesis that 
a large proportion of the stigmata wrongly ascribed to 
heredity, are really due to fear, to a superstition regard- 
ing heredity that exists in the mother's mind. The high 
degree to which the mechanism of childbirth can be in- 
fluenced by the activity of the brain (a sensibility proved 
by the instances previously recorded) compels us to be- 
lieve that when a pregnant woman is obsessed by the 
idea that her child will display some parental stigma, the 
chances are considerable that this will actually happen. 
When suggestion is better understood, and when a 
knowledge of suggestion has been more widely diffused, 
the superstition of heredity, as disseminated by nine- 
teenth-century science and as taught by Zola in his 
novels, will receive a deadly blow — not indeed as regards 
the primary principles of the theory, but as regards' many 
of its premature applications. For there are three kinds 
of suggestion which reinforce one another in the simula- 
tion of heredity : first of all, there is suggestion acting on 
the foetus; secondly, there is the imitative suggestion 
which is one of the laws of the development of the child ; 
and lastly, in the adult, there is the superstition that 
heredity is "inexorable" — a superstition no less erro- 
neous than the belief in miraculous cures, and just as 
disastrous as the latter is often beneficent. 

In like manner, psychoanalysis will doubtless verify 
with increasing frequency the hypothesis that many mis- 
carriages, and many difficult deliveries, are chiefly due 
to maternal autosuggestion. The starting-point in these 
cases may be a fear of such occurrences, cooperating with 



MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 111 

an unavowed anticipatory hatred of the expected child ; 
or it may be some other repressed wish, of which the con- 
scious ego knows nothing, such as the desire that the 
birth of a living child shall not take place, this desire 
being the outcome of a more or less unacknowledged 
hatred of the father, transferred, without the knowledge 
of the subject, to the coming infant. But the fear of 
difficult delivery seems to be the commonest cause of 
such troubles. I have noted the following instance, in 
the course of a psychoanalysis. 

A young woman, mother of a child of seven, had since 
the birth of this child suffered from nervous troubles 
which her doctors had several times declared to be 
amenable to psychoanalytic treatment. I begin, in ac- 
cordance with the usual method, by asking her to tell me 
of some dream, recent or otherwise, which had particu- 
larly struck her. Unhesitatingly, she described a dream 
dating from seven years before, and, in the course of the 
conversation, she spontaneously told me that it had hap- 
pened during her pregnancy. It must have made a pro- 
found impression on her mind, seeing that the memory 
was so vivid and so promptly recounted. Moreover, 
there could be little doubt that the dream was directly 
related to the pregnancy. 

In the dream she was at the town hall. The mayor 
was away, and the patient's husband was acting as his 
deputy. A stranger suddenly appeared, a man of crafty 
and disagreeable aspect. He was a foreigner, appar- 
ently of Hungarian and Italian extraction, and he wanted 
the authorization necessary for residence in Switzerland. 
Her husband begged the stranger to await the mayor's 
return, but the man grew impatient, brandished a dag- 
ger, chased the husband into the street, and wounded 



112 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

him. The young woman now found herself at the win- 
dow, looking down anxiously into the street where this 
was happening. The mayor appeared beneath the win- 
dow, saying to her: "Nothing serious will happen, as 
long as you don 't come down ; be careful, and everything 
will be all right/ ' Then she saw her husband lying in 
a bed which was the replica of her own. He had a bleed- 
ing wound in the forehead. 

Examining the patient by the association test, I now 
discovered that the mayor resembled the doctor who was 
attending her during her pregnancy, so that in her dream 
the mayor symbolized the doctor ; this explained the ad- 
vice given towards the end. In like manner, the for- 
eigner was the coming child, the intruder. 1 The dagger 
and the wound symbolized the pains and the bleeding 
associated with the childbirth she so greatly dreaded. 
By symmetrical transference, the wound was transferred 
to the father, to the father's forehead, the site of the 
wound being a characteristic instance of the working of 
the endopsychic censor. To sum up, the young woman 
had an intense and all-pervading dread of the ordeal she 
had to endure ; she anticipated disaster. Her fears were 
realized. The expected stranger was born before the 
doctor arrived, and the mother had a serious flood- 
ing. 

This dream discloses a mental condition extremely 
favourable to the working of suggestion: the vividness 
with which it was remembered showed that the patient's 
attention was acutely concentrated on her experiences; 
and the distressing nightmare proved the existence of 

1 This stranger had to cross a frontier before entering her 
world, like the Hungarian or the Italian who comes to Switzer- 
land. 



MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 113 

an emotional state. We have here a further instance in 
which the first phase of suggestion was subconscious, was 
repressed, so that (as in the hallucinations of the lad 
Amedee) by symbolism alone was it revealed to the con- 
sciousness of the subject. 

I give another experience of psychoanalysis. 

A young woman, whose first marriage had been ex- 
tremely unhappy, was looking forward to a second mar- 
riage, in which she hoped to find happiness. From the 
moment when this new prospect opened, menstrual irreg- 
ularities, from which she had formerly suffered but from 
which she had long been free, reappeared. The analysis 
showed that the promised destiny seemed to her "too 
beautiful," so that she could not believe it would ever 
be fulfilled. She dreaded that some obstacle would inter- 
vene, and, above all, that her health would stand in the 
way; this fear tended to realize itself through autosug- 
gestion. But the analysis, disclosing the cause of the 
trouble, promptly neutralized it. 

A simulation of pregnancy may result from sugges- 
tion. Pierre Janet has observed an instance of it in a 
hypnotized subject. The condition was due to an auto- 
suggestion grafted on a suggestion made by the oper- 
ator. 

"I suggest to Rose that we are not in 1888, but in 1886, 
and that the month is April. My object is merely to note 
the modifications of sensation that may ensue. The re- 
sult is remarkable. She groans, complains of fatigue, of 
inability to walk. 'Why, what's the matter with you?' 
— 'Oh, nothing; it's natural to my condition.' — 'What 
do you mean ? What condition ? ' She replies by a ges- 
ture, pointing to her abdomen, which has suddenly be- 
come distended by an attack of hysterical tympanites. 



114 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

Unwittingly, I have brought her back by suggestion into 
a period when she was pregnant. ' ' 

Furthermore, suggestions of this character may arise 
in the normal waking state. A woman who dreads being 
pregnant may present all the signs of pregnancy, deceiv- 
ing herself in the matter; or, if she has never been 
pregnant, she may present what she imagines to be the 
signs of pregnancy. 

Louis Renon 2 has endeavoured to ascertain the part 
played by spontaneous suggestion in the treatment of 
chronic pulmonary tuberculosis. A careful interpreta- 
tion of statistics has enabled him to present precise nu- 
merical results, so that his inferences have a solidity 
which is always lacking in a purely narrative record. 
His conclusions, therefore, are worth recording in full. 

"A comparison of the results obtained by the various 
methods of antitubercular treatment, shows that these 
results are practically identical in all cases. Whatever 
the treatment, there is the same percentage of improve- 
ments, the same percentage of cures, the same percentage 
of arrests, the same percentage of cases in which the 
patient grows worse. Laumonier, my colleague and a 
fellow-member of the Therapeutical Society, showed a 
few years ago that in four different methods of treatment 
the percentage of cases cured or alleviated ranged from 
65% to 71% while the percentage of cases in which there 
was no improvement or in which the patient grew worse 
ranged from 29% to 35%. There is always the same 
proportion of satisfactory results, whatever method of 

Pierre Janet, I/automatisme psychologique, Paris, 1889. 
2 Le monde medical, January 15, 1914; Bulletin Ecole de Nancy, 
1914. 



MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 115 

treatment is employed I have described this proportion 
as 'the normal coefficient of amelioration'; and I have 
formulated the following principle : 

"Every new method for the treatment of chronic 
tuberculosis, provided that it is harmless, will give sat- 
isfactory results. 

"Here we have an absolutely true axiom. I should 
like to see it stamped in large letters on the cover of 
every new work upon phthisiotherapeutics ; for unless it 
be taken into account, the accurate appraisement of anti- 
tubercular medication becomes difficult or impossible. 
Before we can venture to say that a method of treating 
tuberculosis is valuable, the treatment must have been 
in operation for a period exceeding that of the normal 
coefficient of amelioration, which is as a rule about three 
weeks; the treatment must have stood the test of time; 
it must have been applied to the same patient by dif- 
ferent physicians; it must have unquestionable experi- 
mental value. Then only are we justified in asserting 
that the remedy is genuinely antitubercular. 

"Why is there this normal coefficient of amelioration f 
The matter is quite simple. Whenever a method of 
treatment is recommended by a doctor who believes in 
the value of his own advice, there ensues in the sufferer 
from chronic tuberculosis a psychotherapeutic state, a 
state tending to promote cure. This state is the same, 
whatever the nature of the treatment. The patient ac- 
cepts the suggestions of his medical adviser, and the 
particular medication is no more than the vehicle of sug- 
gestion. 

"Albert Mathieu, in a paper which throws much light 
on the general problems of therapeutics, has recorded 
the influence, upon tubercular patients in hospital, of 



116 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

the hypodermic injection of cubic centimetre doses of 
physiological serum, which is given the imposing name 
of antiphymosis. The patient is told that the serum in 
question is a new and most valuable discovery ; and after 
his mind has been prepared in this way, an injection is 
administered daily for five or six days. The cases were 
carefully selected, and the results were accurately noted 
day by day. They surpassed all expectation. Within 
a few days, appetite returned; there was less cough, 
less expectoration, there were fewer night-sweats; there 
was even an improvement in the pulmonary physical 
signs; there was an increase in weight, ranging from 
three to six pounds. But all the old signs and symptoms 
recurred immediately when the injections were discon- 
tinued. 

' ' ' Tubercular patients, ' writes Mathieu, ' gain vitality 
directly anything is done for them; their courage rises 
and hope is reborn. ' 

"The most renowned phthisiotherapeutists are those 
who have great personal influence over their patients; 
those who have thoroughly entered into the patient's 
mind and feelings, those who as it were hold the patient 
in the hollow of their hand ; those who guide the patient 
in accordance with the latest principles of the struggle 
against tuberculosis, and have grasped all the resources 
available for that struggle ; those who can reinforce their 
medication with a strong dose of suggestion." 

Further examples might be given, but they would 
teach nothing more concerning the causes and effects of 
motor suggestion. Anyone who desires picturesque il- 
lustrations of its laws, should turn to a remarkable work 
by Duchatel and Warcollier, entitled Les miracles de la 



MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 117 

volonte. 1 From the scientific point of view, the writers' 
methods of exposition are not invariably above reproach. 
Nevertheless, Boirac, a man of science and philosopher 
of established reputation, has thought fit, with good rea- 
son, to contribute a preface. For, in spite of dubious 
theories and hasty conclusions, the book displays consid- 
erable learning and has indisputable evidential value. 
It contains abundant records, derived from the writings 
of distinguished observers of our own day and of earlier 
days. It is a storehouse, and we need merely open the 
door. Phenomena of this character, reported as isolated 
incidents, always have the aspect of anomalous freaks. 
We advance a step by bringing them together in a col- 
lection. 

Let us first consider the cases of dermographism* in 
which an image existing in the subject's mind becomes 
outlined on the skin. The authors make a passing refer- 
ence to the witches of the middle ages upon whose backs, 
it is asserted, the word "Satan" was inscribed. They 
pass to a contemporary and precise report quoted from 
Charles Richet. A mother is watching her child at play. 
Accidentally the child unfastens the catch suspending a 
heavy sliding door in front of the fireplace, and is in 
danger of being guillotined. The mother's heart leaps 
to her mouth, and then, in a moment, there forms round 
her neck — the threatened part in the child — a raised 
erythematous circle, a weal which endures for several 
hours. Here we have a striking instance of the power of 
emotion. Another case is that of a little girl upon whose 
skin appears the answer to the sum she is trying to do. 
In this instance the image which gave rise to the sug- 
gestion was subconscious. 

J Durville, Paris. 



118 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

From dermographism we pass to stigmatization, the 
latter being merely a variety of the former. Stigmata 
appear on the skin of certain mystically inclined persons, 
appear in the places where Christ was wounded. These 
phenomena can be reproduced experimentally. As re- 
gards spontaneous stigmatization, we are not solely de- 
pendent on the account of semi-legendary figures in re- 
mote antiquity; accurate observations have been made 
upon modern stigmatists, like Louise Lateau and Cath- 
erine Emmerich, with sphygmographic tracings and 
other precise details. In the case of Catherine Emmer- 
ich, the circulation was directly controlled by autosug- 
gestion, the blood being distributed as it would have 
been distributed in an actual crucifixion. 

Next, in the world of Islam, we read of the ordeal by 
fire, of the devotee whose hand is not burned by the hot 
iron; and we read of the ordeal by sword, which will 
not draw blood. The authors give a number of instances 
in which obstinate maladies were cured by spontaneous 
autosuggestion, the outcome of some novel and striking 
method of treatment. Of exceptional interest is a quo- 
tation from Cabanes, professor at the university of 
Liege. This dates from 1912. 

The book is fascinating, and is full of matter. We 
unhesitatingly refer our readers to it, though we are far 
from endorsing all the author's interpretations. We 
must, moreover, call attention to the misleading char- 
acter of the title. Instead of speaking of the miracles of 
the " will," Duchatel and Wareollier should (with 0. S. 
Marden) have referred to the miracles of "thought." 
Failing this, they should have made it perfectly clear 
that the will of which they write corresponds to what 
Schopenhauer termed the "unconscious will," so that 






MOTOR SUGGESTIONS 119 

the subject has the impression that what happens takes 
place outside the domain of his will, by a purely spon- 
taneous process. 

The most extraordinary among the suggestions re- 
corded in Les miracles de la volonte differ only by their 
extremely picturesque character from those which have 
been analyzed in the preceding pages. In fact, they do 
not imply any profounder changes in the organism. It 
would be an error to look upon them as, in essence, mani- 
festations of an exceptional or morbid temperament. 
We need not go to religious devotees or to persons suf- 
fering from grave hysteria, when we are looking for in- 
stances in which suggestion leads to organic modifica- 
tions. We shall realize this more clearly when, day 
after day, we have seen such organic modifications pro- 
duced to order, as the outcome of reflective or induced 
suggestion. 1 

*To this series of examples, we might add those of "sugges- 
tion which kills." A nun, whose case was noted by Coue, was 
confined to bed by illness during the winter. She heard or 
imagined she heard her doctor murmur, " She won't outlive 
April." This idea became fixed in her mind. Nevertheless, for 
the time being she got better, left her bed, and seemed quite 
strong again. But to every visitor she said, shaking her head, 
that she felt sure she would die in April. On April 1st her 
appetite disappeared as if by magic. A few days later she took 
to her bed once more, and died shortly before the end of the 
month 

Tolstoi, in his later years, declared that the number 7 was 
fatal to him. On November 7, 1005, in his Readings for Every 
Day of the Year, he gives a number of thoughts on death. On 
November 7, 1910 (O. S.), he died after a few days' illness, 
although his condition "had not seemed grave." 

Recall, further, the case of the man sentenced to death, who 
was told he was to perish as the victim of a scientific experi- 



120 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

In conclusion we have to note that there is no radical 
difference between the action of suggestion when its 
results are purely functional, and its action when its 
results are organic. If we admit that suggestion can act 
in the former cases (and this has long been admitted), 
there need be no difficulty about acknowledging the real- 
ity of its action in the latter cases. For certain persons 
of pseudo-scientific mind, persons who regard as ' ' incom- 
prehensible" everything which disturbs their habits of 
thought, the organic effects of suggestion are "inadmis- 
sible" until they have seen these effects experimentally 
verified — and even thereafter. Such persons are ex- 
tremely illogical. They admit that suggestion acts on the 
circulation, on the secretions, and in a localized fashion 
upon various parts of the body, doing this through the in- 
termediation of the vasomotor nerves. Now let us suppose 
that the vasomotor mechanism stimulates or restricts the 
circulation through the capillaries supplying some par- 
ticular group of cells, and that this action is persistent. 
Thereupon the cells of this group will, as the ease may 
be, enjoy an excess of nourishment, or will be insuffi- 
ciently supplied. They will prosper, like parasites; or 
they will atrophy. The suggestive action which mani- 
fests itself in the case of tumours, local malformations, 
etc., can be very simply explained on these lines, with- 
out having recourse to any laws other than those with 
which we are already familiar. 

ment. A harmless prick was made in each of his limbs; a tap 
was turned on in the room and he was told the water running 
was his blood flowing from the wounds ; believing this, he died. 

See, finally, Freud's opinion (quoted on page 99) that death 
may be caused by a subconscious complex. 






CHAPTER EIGHT 

CONDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS 

We have finished the analytical exposition of the phe- 
nomena classified in the scheme we drew up at the begin- 
ning of Chapter III; we have discussed representative 
suggestions, affective suggestions, and active or motor 
suggestions. 

A special chapter must now be devoted to what may 
be termed conditional autosuggestions, the autosugges- 
tions which are the realizations of an idea that may be 
formulated as follows : ' ' Every time that so-and-so hap- 
pens, so-and-so will follow." 

Practitioners of hypnotism have long been familiar 
with ''posthypnotic suggestion. ' ' Having induced 
sleep, they order the subject to do some fantastic thing 
after he has awakened ; or they tell him to come back in 
a week or a fortnight. The subject obeys the suggestion, 
without knowing why, for he thinks he is actuated by 
his own will, and finds excellent reasons for what he 
does. The means employed by the subconscious tele- 
ology, for the justification of the act, are often remark- 
ably subtle. A young man to whom I had suggested that 
on awaking he should assume the traditional Napoleonic 
attitude, with the arms folded on the chest, began, when 
awakened, by expressing his astonishment at all the phe- 
nomena which had just taken place. His surprise be- 
came more and more intense, until at last, exclaiming, 
"Look here, this is a bit too thick !" he folded his arms 
in an appropriate pose. Now the astonishment van- 

121 



122 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

ished; with crossed arms he stood in statuesque im- 
mobility; behold Napoleon! The gestures of astonish- 
ment had been the justificatory means. The subcon- 
scious had utilized astonishment, the subject's actual 
state of mind, and had modified it in the direction of 
the suggestion which was to be realized. This is, in a 
sense, analogous to what takes place in hallucination by 
compromise. 

Posthypnotic suggestion may take a conditional form. 
We may command the hypnotized subject to have this 
or that idea, to execute this or that gesture, whenever 
this, that, or the other happens. . . . By this method 
we may make the patient remember the draught he has 
to take every time he sits down to a meal. 

But such posthypnotic suggestions are in most cases 
valid for a brief period only. As the interval increases, 
as the impression received during the induced sleep 
gradually fades, they become inefficacious. 

Nevertheless, there also exist conditional spontaneous 
autosuggestions, and these may remain in force for an 
indefinite period, until they are inhibited by a counter- 
suggestion. They may last for years, for an entire life- 
time. This is strongly confirmatory of our thesis that 
autosuggestion is in reality the type of all suggestion; 
that hypnotic heterosuggestion is no more than a repro- 
duction of autosuggestion, a reproduction that is often 
attenuated, fragile, and unstable. 1 

1 In Auguste Ford's opinion, curative heterosuggestion is dur- 
able in two cases only: first, when there is no reason why the 
material cause of the trouble should recur; and, secondly, when 
the heterosuggestion perpetuates itself in the subject "as a 
habit and as an autosuggestion." It is obvious that Forel was a 
precursor in expounding the theory of autosuggestion brought 
forward in the present work. 



CONDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS 123 

If hypnotic heterosuggestion was the first form of 
suggestion to attract attention, this is because the idea 
which forms its starting-point, though forgotten by the 
subject, is clearly remembered by the physician. The 
hypnotizer, in fact, being aware that he was making an 
experiment, noted all that happened with great care. 
Moreover, the number of the ideas proposed by him to 
the subject was strictly limited; they constituted a few 
shining points upon a dark background; consequently 
they were easy to remember. 

On the other hand, the ideas from which our spon- 
taneous autosuggestions are derived, are lost amid the 
vast swarm of incidents that fill the busy life of our con- 
sciousness. Nay more, as we have seen, our consciousness 
is quite ignorant of some of them. Take, further, into 
account the effects of repression (to which we referred 
at the outset), and it will be easy to understand why 
hypnotic heterosuggestion, though infinitely less impor- 
tant than spontaneous autosuggestion, was the first to 
be discovered. 

Confirmation of the foregoing is furnished by the fol- 
lowing examples, which Coue has gleaned for me from 
his vast experience. The proof that we are concerned 
with pure conditional autosuggestions, with phenomena 
that are not determined by any organic lesion whatever, 
is given by the fact that in every case the trouble dis- 
appeared immediately after a single countersuggestion. 
This was the criterion by which Coue was guided in the 
choice of his examples. 

Case 1. — Madame N. of Nancy, travelling from Nancy 
to Sainte-Menehould to visit her son, became ill when the 
train was passing through Troyes, and vomited repeat- 



124 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

edly. Henceforward, every time she made the same 
journey, she was again attacked by vomiting while pass- 
ing through Troyes. (Cured after one sitting.) 

Case 2. — For six months, a young girl had lost the 
use of her right hand. Every time she tried to take 
hold of anything, a contracture of the hand took place, 
the spasm passing off directly she discontinued the at- 
tempt to use the hand. (Cure after a single sitting.) 

Case 3. — A young man eighteen years of age, living 
near Nancy, had a hysteroid crisis every morning, di- 
rectly he got out of bed. (Cure after a single sitting; 
kept under observation for a long time ; no relapse.) 

Case 4. — I give this in Coue's own words: "Z., of 
Troyes, a man of about forty, suffering from heart, liver, 
and kidney troubles ; had been confined to his room for 
more than a year, bedridden for the most part. One 
day, five months before I was first consulted, the patient 
was seized at five o'clock with a violent paroxysm of 
dyspnoea, and imagined from moment to moment that 
he was dying.. Various remedies used by his doctor 
failed to give relief, and the crisis continued until half- 
past nine in the evening. Next day, towards half-past 
four, the patient said to his wife that the paroxysm 
would shortly recur, and in fact, when the clock struck 
five, the dyspnoea returned in full force, passing through 
exactly the same phases as before, and subsiding at half- 
past nine. Henceforward the crises recurred daily, 
without exception, for five months. When the man's 
wife came to see me, and told me the history of his 
sufferings, I assured her that in my opinion it would not 
be difficult to cure him of the paroxysms, for it was 
obvious to my mind that they were unconsciously in- 
duced by the patient himself. I begged her to bring 



CONDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS 125 

him to my consulting room next day at two. He ar- 
rived at the appointed hour, in a carriage. Several 
other patients were present. I asked Z. to take a seat, 
and to watch what was going on. I would attend to 
him, I said, when I had done with the others. Having 
put my patients to sleep (for at this time I still con- 
tinued this practice, which I have since abandoned), I 
began to make general suggestions to them. Turning 
round while I was speaking, I perceived that the sight 
of the others sleeping had induced sleep in Z. Having 
continued general suggestions for a time, I next pro- 
ceeded to make appropriate suggestions to each patient. 
I then awakened them all, and told Z. to return the next 
day at the same hour. When he kept this appointment, 
I asked him how he was. ' I have had no paroxysm, ' he 
answered. 'I knew I should be all right yesterday, 
when I left you.' Further suggestions were made that 
afternoon, and a fresh appointment was arranged for the 
morrow. At this third visit, the report was the same. 
The paroxysmal dypncea was cured, and has not since 
returned. 1 

"We may infer that the first paroxysm was genuine, 
and that the 150 others were unconsciously brought on 
by the patient 's expectation that the trouble would recur 
at the customary hour." 

The above examples, culled from among many, of 
conditional spontaneous autosuggestion, will suffice to 
put us on our guard against pains and other symptoms 
which appear in us every time that this or that happens 
— when the tie between the supposed cause and the sup- 

1 The report quoted in the text was penned six years after the 
incidents described. 



126 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

posed effect is not clearly demonstrated. Attacks of mi- 
graine which a lady always has on her at home day; 
seizures of vertigo that come on "every morning , '; 
toothache from which we suffer "whenever we are 
tired"; headaches that affect us "every time we go out 
of doors"; bronchitis that recurs "every winter"; the 
"old" rheumatism that turns up each December — these 
and many similar troubles are partly or wholly due to 
autosuggestion. The fact is proved by the prompt way 
in which they are cured when countersuggestion is prac- 
tised after the Nancy method. Even dysmenorrhea and 
other menstrual irregularities, though they are disorders 
of a periodic physiological function, often belong to the 
same category, and are frequently relieved by the same 
treatment. 

Moreover, as we learned just now in the case of post- 
hypnotic suggestion, so here, we learn once more the 
teleology of the subconscious, which desires to justify to 
the subject's mind the existence of the assumed causal 
nexus. We find such excellent reasons for our belief. 
My vertigo comes on every morning because I awake 
feeling uneasy. My attacks recur every evening because 
I am worn out by the labours of the day. I have a mi- 
graine every at-home day ! The matter is quite simple : 
there is such a crowd of people ; I have to think of such 
a lot of things, to talk so much. Why do I always begin 
to vomit when the train reaches Troyes? It is natural 
enough, seeing that the journey from Nancy to Troyes 
is the maximum my stomach can endure without revolt. 
I ignore the fact that longer journeys on other lines 
cause me no inconvenience. I do not recall that I can 
work much harder than I work on my at-home days, and 
nevertheless remain entirely free from migraine ; for in- 



CONDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS 127 

stance, at the ball the other night, although I talked a 
great deal there, and it was after the fatigues of the day. 
Everything of this kind is forgotten, repressed, cen- 
sored. We hold fast to our excellent reasons. Terrible 
is the case of those who are unlucky enough to have a 
spice of intelligence, and especially of those who have 
medical knowledge. 1 The excellent reasons are built up 
into a system, whose foundations it is far from easy to 
undermine. If anyone wants to discuss the matter, if 
anyone doubts the validity of your arguments, you are 
annoyed, for you cling to your reasons for being ill. Or 
rather, your subconscious does it through your mouth, 
for it is the subconscious that clings to the reasons. 

These reasons are like those of the young man referred 
to above, the man who folded his arms "because he was 
astonished. ' ' In reality he folded his arms because of 
a suggestion impressed upon his subconscious self, a 
suggestion that he was to assume the pose of Napoleon. 
Nevertheless, there were excellent reasons for his aston- 
ishment, and these reasons had their reasons in turn. 
The end pursued by the suggestion, exercises, as it were, 
a powerful magnetic attraction upon an entire chain of 
thoughts. We can well imagine that if, in the familiar 
experiment of the physical laboratory, the iron filings 
could speak, they too would find excellent reasons for 
arranging themselves in rows when subjected to the in- 
fluence of the magnet ! 

1 This is one of the reasons why so many doctors (even at 
Nancy!) still prove impermeable to the theory of autosuggestion. 



CHAPTER NINE 

i 

THE ACTION OF SLEEP 

The action of sleep (we mean natural sleep) in relation 
to spontaneous suggestion requires special attention, for 
it is of considerable value in this connection. 

Many persons are quite independent of the use of 
alarum clocks or other means of being called in the morn- 
ing. When they are going to sleep they think of the 
hour at which they wish to rise, and they invariably 
wake at the appointed time. Others attempt this plan, 
and fail. For everything depends upon how the 
"thinking" is done. This word gives us no information 
as to the precise condition in which those persons who 
succeed in waking when they desire had spontaneously 
placed their minds overnight. But by the use of reflect- 
ive suggestion, everyone can "think" in the right man- 
ner, and can with all requisite precision repeat this ele- 
mentary experiment. Furthermore, without quitting 
the domain of spontaneous suggestion, there are few 
children who have not performed this same experiment 
on themselves when they have gone to sleep some evening 
obsessed with the thought of a great joy awaiting them 
on the morrow (for instance, the early start for a holi- 
day journey). A child unable to wake at eight on or- 
dinary school days will on this occasion be wide awake 
at five, ready to jump out of bed. The subconscious 

128 



THE ACTION OF SLEEP 129 

never sleeps, and in the subconscious the prospective 
joy has been at work all night. 

This form of suggestion may be conditional. For in- 
stance, the mother who will sleep through a thunder- 
storm, will awaken at her baby's least cry. 

Thus, the idea we have in our minds as we fall asleep 
may be the starting-point of a suggestion which con- 
tinues to operate during sleep. Certain dreams, certain 
nightmares, inspired by what we were reading before 
we went to bed, afford additional examples. Suggestions 
of this order may be realized with remarkable accuracy. 

For example, as a part of some of the religions of an- 
tiquity, there was practised the art of invoking dreams 
which the subject ascribed to the gods, being unaware 
that he had caused them himself. Without dwelling 
upon the oracles of ancient Greece, where the priests 
had charms which could make the gods visible to the 
faithful in slumber (we verge here upon the field of 
hypnotic hallucination), we find in the worship of Hec- 
ate a singular example of spontaneous suggestion. 
After the performance of certain mysterious rites, the 
devotees of Hecate would have a vision of the goddess 
during their slumbers, provided that before going to 
sleep they had prayed to her in due form. They must 
follow the instructions of the goddess: 

My image purify, as I shall show : 

Of wild rue form the frame, and deck it o'er 

With lizards such as run about the house; 

These mix with resin, myrrh, and frankincense, 

Pound all together in the open air 

Under the crescent moon, and add this vow. 

She sets forth the vow, and shows how many lizards 
are needed : 



130 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

Take lizards many as my many forms 

And do all this with care. My spacious house 

With branches of self-planted laurel form. 

Then to my image offer many a prayer, 

And in thy sleep thou shalt behold me nigh. 1 

It is obvious that the strange and complex ritual 
prescribed for the preparation of the image must have 
favoured suggestion by making a powerful appeal to the 
imagination. The moon and the lizards are remarkably 
reminiscent of the stars and the toads in the Vaudois 
recipes for the charming away of warts and for the cure 
of dropsy. 

At other times the suggestion (as in posthypnotic sug- 
gestion) has originated during sleep, in a dream, and 
is realized sooner or later after waking. 

Here is the case of a Geneva girl whom I was treating 
in consultation with Pierre Bovet. She suffered from 
nervous troubles for which the combined action of auto- 
suggestion and psychoanalysis seemed appropriate. She 
told us that in the morning she had fainted, a thing 
which had not happened to her for several years. Pierre 
Bovet then began the psychoanalytic investigation. 
During this, the patient recalled the fact that during the 
previous night she had dreamed that her father had 
fallen down in a fainting fit, and that this dream had 
made a strong impression on her mind. 

Similarly, a man in perfect health dreamed that he 
was being operated on for appendicitis. Six months or a 
year later, he had an attack of this disease. 

1 Porphyry, quoted by Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, Book 
V, Chapter XII.— The English translation is by E. H. Gifford, 
Eusebii Pamphili, Evangelicae Praeparationis, Oxford, 1903, Vol* 
III, p. 218. 



THE ACTION OF SLEEP 131 

It is obvious that in cases of this kind (if we assume 
the facts to be so accurately known that coincidence may 
be excluded) two alternative interpretations are possible. 
It may be supposed that the subconscious has intuitively 
grasped the imminence of certain lesions, the significance 
of certain organic predispositions; that it has deduced, 
has concluded, has revealed its conclusions, in the form 
of a dream. Even if this be so, it does not necessarily 
follow that the dream foreshadows the oncoming of an 
inexorable fate. It is no more than a suggestion favour- 
ing the realization of something that was perhaps 
threatening; but a countersuggestion may avert the 
trouble. 

We must not suppose that what happens when we are 
asleep is radically different from what happens when 
we are awake. The foreshadowing idea, the " presenti- 
ment' ' that we are going to be ill, may likewise be in- 
spired by an already existing lesion, by a predisposition 
to the disease. This idea is none the less a suggestion. 
The presentiment does not determine the future, for it 
may be neutralized by a countersuggestion, as we have 
already learned, and as we shall learn still more con- 
vincingly by and by. 

Even when the subject has dreamed of events which 
subsequently come to pass, we must not be too ready 
to infer that the dream was ' ' prophetic. ' ' Still less must 
we plunge into metaphysics ; still less must we make the 
facile affirmation that absolute determinism is experi- 
mentally proved, saying that whatever is written is writ- 
ten. The considerations developed in Chapter VI relat- 
ing to the effects of autosuggestion upon the actual 
course of events, will suffice to guard us against such 
hasty conclusions. 



132 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

We have now examined : 

1. The cases in which the suggestion had its origin 
when the subject was just falling asleep ; 

2. The cases in which the suggestion originated dur- 
ing sleep. 

There are also cases of a more complex kind, more or 
less synthetic of 1 and 2. In these instances, the idea 
which is in the subject's mind just as he falls asleep, 
undergoes ramification during slumber; it becomes as- 
sociated with other ideas requisite for its suggestive 
realization ; during the period of sleep, and unknown to 
our conscious ego, complicated mental operations are 
performed. 

For instance, we fall asleep puzzling over a sum, and 
wake to find it solved. The concentration of the atten- 
tion before going to sleep has here determined the sug- 
gestion. Sometimes, as soon as the answer is found, it 
appears to the sleeper in the form of a dream, as when 
a number shows itself to him written on a blackboard. 
In other cases it wakens the subject in the middle of the 
night. Moreover, these occurrences are not limited to 
the solution of arithmetical and similar problems. A 
poet, unable to write an elusive stanza, will at night 
throw down his pen and leave the page blank. In the 
morning he will wake up to find the stanza ready in his 
mind. Sometimes, again, he will hear a voice dictating 
it to him while he dreams, and will awaken prematurely 
in order to note it down. 

Finally, some question may be troubling us greatly 
when we go to sleep ; but in the morning we find that our 
difficulties have vanished, and that our mind is made up. 
The wisdom of the nations has embodied this familiar 
experience in a proverb, " Night brings counsel." 



THE ACTION OF SLEEP 133 

These facts are well known, but we are too apt to dis- 
miss them as exceptional or merely strange phenomena. 
We have failed, hitherto, to note their enormous signifi- 
cance, and to apply them as they might be applied. 



CHAPTER TEN 

THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS 

(The Laws of Suggestion) 

What conclusions should now be drawn ? 

1. Law of Concentrated Attention. — The essential 
and invariable condition of spontaneous suggestion re- 
lates to the first phase of the process. The idea which 
tends to realize itself in this way is always an idea on 
which spontaneous attention is concentrated, or an idea 
which has been forced on the attention after the manner 
of an obsession. When the idea is subconscious, there 
is sometimes a transfer of obsession, a transfer of atten- 
tion ; this may at first throw us off the trail, but psycho- 
analysis will clear up the difficulty. 

2. Law of Auxiliary Amotion. — As Ribot has shown, 
spontaneous attention is closely associated with our 
tendencies ; it dwells on anything which is in conformity 
with them, or upon anything which conflicts with them ; 
it naturally possesses, that is to say, a certain affective 
accompaniment. The more marked this affective accom- 
paniment, the more strongly is suggestion favoured. 
When, for one reason or another, an idea is enveloped in 
a powerful emotion, there is more likelihood that this 
idea will he suggestively realized. In the course of the 
preceding examples,-" we have frequently seen emotion at 

134 



LAWS OF SUGGESTION 135 

work. But there are typical cases in which this role of 
emotion appears in isolation, so that it is more conspic- 
uous. 1 

We see this, for example, in stage fright, and in the 
terror of the examinee. A candidate who knows his sub- 
ject perfectly well may suddenly be stricken with sug- 
gestive amnesia. In essence there is no difference be- 
tween this and the forgetfulness of a proper name in 
ordinary conversation; but the examinee's amnesia is far 
more intense, its higher degree corresponding with the 
greater intensity of the emotion. 

Violent emotion appears to heighten the force of sug- 
gestions of any kind. Intense fear may thus have two 

^ouillee, the philosopher who formulated the notion that 
"ideas are forces," contended for the principle that ideas act 
only through the instrumentality of sensibility. 

Certain authors (Thorndike, for instance) have flatly denied 
the existence of ideomotor force. An idea as such, they say, is 
unable to work for its own realization; when this seems to 
happen, there is always an intermediary affective element. Since 
the pure idea is an abstraction, since in actual experience an 
idea invariably has an emotional colouring, it would seem a 
delicate matter to judge between the two theses. James Drever 
(Instinct in Man, A Contribution to the Psychology of Educa- 
tion, Cambridge University Press, 1917) opines that the decision 
is impracticable in the present state of our knowledge. Having 
deduced the consequences of Thorndike's hypothesis, he justly 
remarks that if it be true that there is no such thing as ideomotor 
force, suggestion (which is defined wholly in the terms of such 
a force) would no longer exist as a primary force, but would 
be reducible to other forces (instinct, affect, etc.). But it is 
obvious, as Drever himself shows, that until this reduction is 
possible (being assumed for the sake of argument to be possible), 
we must continue to look upon suggestion as a primary force. 
Though it may be possible that the laws of suggestion will some 
day be subsumed under other laws, this does not invalidate the 



136 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

very different results, the divergence depending on the 
nature of the idea present in the mind. Fear may glue 
the feet to the ground. A motor dashes round the corner 
when you are walking in the middle of the road ; you are 
afraid you will not be able to get out of the way in time, 
and consequently you cannot move a step. On the 
other hand, fear may restore the use of his legs to a 
paralytic. In 1915, in one of the air-raids on Paris, a 
paralyzed woman living on the fifth storey found herself 
in the porter's lodge on the ground floor, without know- 
ing how she had got there; a bomb had exploded close 
at hand, and she had fled downstairs in a moment; the 
idea of flight at all hazards had seized her mind, and 
under the influence of the violent emotion this idea had 
been transformed into action. 1 



existing laws of suggestion; any more than the conception of 
weight is a figment because it proves to be nothing more than a 
particular instance of universal gravitation. 

But in any case, the part played in suggestion by the affective 
element is considerable. Even Drever, whose views are in- 
genious, looks upon this affective element as a possible means 
for effecting the synthesis of the two meanings of the term sug- 
gestion (acceptation, and ideoreflex power). An idea, as its na- 
ture and the conditions varied, would transform itself, now into 
a belief, and now into an action. For like reasons, the idea 
would undergo transformation upon encountering in the subject, 
either an instinctive interest to be realized, or a deep-seated and 
uninhibited tendency which it could satisfy. 

[Edward Lee Thorndike's book, referred to above, is Educa- 
tional Psychology, briefer course, New York, 1915. — See Chapter 
VI] 

a In elucidation of this example, it is necessary to point out 
that in man, as in the lower animals, fear shows itself in two 
very different forms. In some cases fear stimulates to flight; 
in other cases fear stimulates to concealment and immobility. 



LAWS OF SUGGESTION 137 

Emotion, it might be said, instantaneously raises an 
idea to the boiling point, intensifies it to the degree when 
it can become an effective force. 

3. The Law of Reversed Effort. — Another law we 
have caught a glimpse of on several occasions runs as 
follows: When an idea imposes itself on the mind to 
such an extent as to give rise to a suggestion, all the 
conscious efforts which the subject makes in order to 
counteract this suggestion are not merely without the 
desired effect, but they actually run counter to the sub- 
ject's conscious wishes and tend to intensify the sugges- 
tion. The efforts are spontaneously reversed so as to 
reinforce the effect of the dominant idea. Whenever 
anyone is in the state of mind, "I should like to, but I 
cannot, ' ' 1 he may wish as much as he pleases ; but the 
harder he tries, the less he is able. 

This law of reversed effort is familiar in all its sim- 
plicity to everyone who has learned to ride a bicycle. 
When we are at length able to wobble painfully along, 
should we see a big stone lying in the middle of the road, 
we know that all our attempts to avoid it serve only to 
direct our steering wheel towards the obstacle, upon 
which it impinges with deadly precision. Thus we seem 
to search out even the smallest pebbles that are most 
remote from our proper course. Our desperate tugs at 
the handlebar avail us nothing. The stone has attracted 
our attention, our emotions are aroused, suggestion is 

Thus there are two distinct types of fear, and English authors 
accordingly speak of the instinct for flight and the instinct for 
concealment. It would be an error to assert that any kind of 
emotion can intensify any kind of suggestion. 

1 The condition is often expressed by the phrase, " I can't 
help it." 



138 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

at work, and our efforts to counteract it serve merely 
to reinforce it. 

This is something more than a quaint experience. It 
is an illustration of a law valid for all the obstacles we 
have to encounter in our path through life. 

4. Law of Subconscious Teleology. — Suggestion acts 
by subconscious teleology. When the end has been sug- 
gested, the subconscious finds means for its realization. 
In the search for expedients, it often astonishes us by its 
skill and sagacity. All is grist which comes to its mill, 
and it has no scruples about cheating. Coue gives me a 
typical example. 

A chemist's assistant, having heard talk of the results 
of suggestion, wished to be hypnotized by Coue, who 
at that date still practised this method. But the subject 
had an overpowering fear that it might prove impossible 
to reawaken him, and had continually to be reassured 
upon the point. Sleep was induced. At the agreed 
signal he opened his eyes, but declared that he was blind. 
Coue treated the matter lightly, hypnotized him once 
more, and soon put the imaginary blindness to flight. 
How had it originated 1 Under the influence of an auto- 
suggestion, the conviction " I shall never wake again." 
The hynotizer's suggestion that he should open his eyes 
did not fully dispel this conviction. "While obeying the 
order, the subconscious found a way to realize the primi- 
tive autosuggestion through fraud. The simulated blind- 
ness was equivalent to the closure of the eyes character- 
istic of sleep, which was inhibited by a countersugges- 
tion; this false blindness was therefore chosen as the 
next best thing to remaining asleep. 

5. In addition to the four laws hitherto formulated, 
we may add that spontaneous autosuggestion is a phe- 



LAWS OF SUGGESTION 139 

nomenon of everyday occurrence. To the subject it is no 
whit inferior in importance to the classic form of hyp- 
notic suggestion. Often, indeed, the results of spon- 
taneous autosuggestion are far more intense and far 
more lasting than those of hypnotic suggestion. More- 
over, the state of natural sleep is extremely favourable 
to the development of spontaneous autosuggestion. 

6. Having dealt with theoretical conclusions, we may 
now pass to practice. We should keep watch on our 
spontaneous autosuggestions; we should track them to 
their lairs; we should, as the English phrase it, "control 
our thoughts/' checking the " undesirable'' ideas which 
would transform themselves into noxious suggestions 
(ideas of weakness, poverty, impending misfortune, ill- 
ness). We should abstain from attempts to learn the 
future by consulting mediums and clairvoyants, whose 
fantastic prophecies will germinate in our minds into 
veritable suggestions, and will tend to realize themselves, 
so that a prophetess of misfortune may perchance prove 
an unwitting criminal. When we have occasion to refer 
to our habitual ailments, we should be careful always to 
employ the past tense, saying "I have slept badly of 
late;" instead of the customary present, "I am a bad 
sleeper," which condenses the present and the future, 
and involves the future just as much as if we were to 
say "I shall sleep badly to-night." Furthermore we 
should make it a rule to talk as little as possible about 
our ailments. 1 When we are asked how we are, it is 
better to reply "Quite well, thank you" — better not only 
that we may avoid aggravating our own troubles, but in 

^'The Greeks had the excellent sense not to talk overmuch 
about their ailments." W. H. S. Jones, Malaria, London, 1907, 
p. 26. 



140 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

order that we may avoid disseminating suggestive con- 
tagion. Speaking generally, we should turn our minds 
away from "undesirable" things. But how? Here lies 
the field for reflective suggestion. 



PART TWO 
REFLECTIVE SUGGESTION 



CHAPTEE ONE 

THE LAW OF REVERSED EFFORT 

The study of spontaneous autosuggestion has taught us 
that, under certain conditions, an idea is able, unaided, 
to release a force which, by means of subconscious activi- 
ties, can realize the idea. The key of the whole mechan- 
ism is the idea itself. 

We ought, then, to be able to guide autosuggestion as 
we please. It is a natural force which we can court. 
When the idea is unfavourable, we can change it ; when 
it is good we can reinforce it. We have merely to sub- 
stitute for spontaneous attention that voluntary atten- 
tion with which, as civilized adults, we are all familiar. 
But in practice the matter is by no means simple. 

Let us return to the laws which we formulated at the 
close of Part I. Let us consider the first three of these 
laws, those which relate to the preliminary conditions 
requisite for suggestion, those which show what char- 
acters an idea must exhibit if it is to bring about its own 
realization. These are : 

1. The law of concentrated attention; 

2. The law of auxiliary emotion; 

3. The law of reversed effort. 

We are tempted to say: let us conform to these laws 
as the mechanical inventor conforms to the laws of me- 
chanics. Let us voluntarily place ourselves in the con- 
ditions of which nature has set us the example, by realiz- 
ing them spontaneously. 

143 



144 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

But a very little thought will reveal the difficulties in 
our path. 

In the first place, the second law reminds us that 
emotion plays a considerable part in the production of 
suggestions. We think, above all, of faith cures, of cures 
due to faith in the healer; and we remember that faith 
heals in proportion as it is an emotional state. We re- 
call the case in which paralysis was cured by the fear 
resulting from an aerial bombardment. And we are 
forced to the conclusion that, where voluntary sugges- 
tion is concerned, this potent .adjuvant, lively emotion, 
will commonly be lacking. For, while we are familiar 
with voluntary attention, and know * it to be no less 
puissant than spontaneous attention, we know nothing 
of voluntary emotion, seeing that emotion is, by defini- 
tion, a passive state which cannot be manufactured to 
order. Unless, indeed, we can produce it voluntarily by 
suggestion? But here we are running ahead, and seem 
to have entered a vicious circle. For the nonce we must 
consider the possibilities of voluntary suggestion with- 
out the help of this auxiliary on which we were relying. 
Happily it was no more than an auxiliary, but how valu- 
able a one! 

We are left with the first law and the third, the law 
of concentrated attention and the law of reversed effort. 
These laws, separately considered, seem to offer no fur- 
ther difficulties. We can concentrate voluntary attention 
upon any physical or mental modification we please. As 
for the struggle summed up in the law of reversed 
effort, that apparently does not come into the question 
at all, since here our desires are in precise conformity 
with our thoughts. 

But we must quit generalities, and must enter the 



THE LAW OF REVERSED EFFORT 145 

sphere of the concrete. The frequency of spontaneous 
suggestions, above all of bad ones, shows us that the 
first task of reflective suggestion must be to neutralize 
these noxious suggestions, to struggle against sugges- 
tions that are already in operation. Yet now, when we 
concentrate voluntary attention upon the good idea 
which we are to substitute for the bad idea, when we 
devote all our energies to this substitution, what will 
happen? A reversal of effort, nothing more. The 
harder we try to think the good idea, the more violent 
will be the assaults of the bad idea. It will be with us 
as it is with the neurasthenic who engulfs his limbs in 
the quicksand of neurasthenia because he is struggling 
to escape from it (p. 43) ; as it is with one obsessed who 
aggravates his obsession by endeavouring to throw it off ; 
as it is with the drunkard whose best efforts to give up 
drinking serve merely to lead him to the nearest tap- 
room. 

Voluntary suggestion, understood as we were inclined 
to understand it, therefore reveals itself, not as power- 
less, but as possessed of negative force in its role of 
countersuggestion. Must we limit its use to cases in 
which we are not at war with ourselves, to cases in which 
we merely wish to call into existence a mental or bodily 
state that does not conflict with any antecedent spon- 
taneous suggestion? 

But in these cases, too, the difficulty persists. Volun- 
tary effort essentially presupposes the idea of a resist- 
ance to be overcome. 1 . It comprises both action and re- 
action. The two notions are simultaneously present at 

1 Cf. Maine de Biran's analysis of effort in Part I, Section II 
of his Essai sur les fondements de la psychologie, Oeuvres 
inedites, 1859, Vol. I. 



146 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

the moment of the effort. If, then (and this is a matter 
of the first importance), I concentrate voluntary atten- 
tion on an idea, which implies my making an effort, I 
am simultaneously conscious of an action towards this 
idea, and of a resistance in consequence of which the 
idea continually tends to escape me, so that I must un- 
ceasingly recall my wandering attention. 1 According to 
Maine de Biran, the consciousness of effort synthetizes 
that of the ego and of the non-ego. We may add that, in 
the effort of voluntarily attending to an idea, our con- 
sciousness embraces at one and the same time thought 
and non- thought; or, let us say, our state of mind syn- 
thetizes, on the one hand, the idea, and, on the other 
hand, the resistance which this idea has to being 
thought. 

In these circumstances, we do not think a single idea, 
but two conflicting ideas. And if our state of conscious- 
ness is sufficiently reinforced by attention for the origi- 
nation of a suggestion to be possible, it is not a single 
suggestion that will result, but there will be two con- 
flicting suggestions which will neutralize one another 
more or less perfectly. 2 The yield, therefore, will be far 
less copious than in the case of spontaneous suggestion. 
And if it should unfortunately happen that the senti- 
ment of effort and resistance predominates, we shall 

1 Attention, as Ribot has shown, is never stable. It is an un- 
ceasing return of the mind to the object of attention. 

2 Herbert Parkyn writes (op. cit., p. 96) : " As a matter of fact, 
it is impossible to concentrate the mind upon a single object for 
more than a few moments at a time. Voluntary concentration 
really consists in a repetition of successive efforts to bring back 
a subject to the mind." Parkyn, however, not having grasped 
the law of reversed effort, fails to draw from this observation 
the conclusions drawn in the text 



THE LAW OF REVERSED EFFORT 147 

probably arrive at a negative result, the reverse of that 
which we desire, a result whose dimensions will be pro- 
portional to the efforts we have made to avoid it. 1 

Experience verifies what reason has led us to forecast. 
Every day we see novices in the practice of reflective 
suggestion begin by attaining contradictory results. The 
indicator of the balance swings, now in the right direc- 
tion and now in the wrong ; and when the task before us 
is to uproot a preexistent suggestion, we frequently en- 
counter a check at the outset. At this stage, therefore, 
many persons, unless they find an adviser who is able to 
explain to them the cause of their failure, are inclined to 
throw the handle after the hatchet. 

The unprecedented success of the New Nancy School 
has been due to its having had these competent advisers, 
persons who have been able, experimentally and by 
"Srief verbal explanations, to throw light upon the vital 
point, to disclose the stumbling-block, and to help peo- 
ple past this initial difficulty. Coue's most original con- 
tribution, his stroke of genius, was, I consider, his dis- 
covery of the law of reversed effort. He did not give it 
a name ; he did not find for it a definitive psychological 
formula; he did not analyze it. But he discovered it; 
and, leaving to others the study of its essential principle 
and its innumerable consequences, he passed without de- 
lay to its most urgent applications. Adopting a prac- 
tical outlook, he gave to his law an incisive formulation 

1 When we vainly endeavour to write a stanza overnight, and 
in the morning find the stanza ready written in the mind, it is 
doubtless essential that our discouragement, that the sense of 
impotence which led us to throw down our rebellious pen, shall 
not have been too vivid when we were still trying to write. 



148 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

so that it could make itself felt, could be graven on 
everyone's memory. He is careful to point out that the 
mathematical terminology employed in the formula is 
nothing more than a metaphor "which aims at making 
his thought intelligible." There is no implication that 
the law has the theoretical precision of Weber's and 
Feehner's law of sensation — Feehner's statement of this 
law assuming definite logarithmic form. To forestall ob- 
vious criticism, it is desirable to insist upon the reserva- 
tion once again. Having pointed this out, we proceed 
to give Coue's formula in his own words: 

"When the will and the imagination are at war, the 
imagination invariably gains the day. 

1 ' In the conflict between the will and the imagination, 
the force of the imagination is in direct ratio to the 
square of the will. 9 ' 1 

This law of reversed effort, revealed in its full power 
when the subject has to strive against a prior suggestion, 
is not peculiar to such instances. It operates in all 
suggestions wherein effort of will is the leading factor. 
As we have just explained, it is an outcome of the very 
nature of effort, and it is daily verified by Coue and his 
followers. If we enquire of the new "pupils," of those 
that have failed in their first attempts, concerning the 
manner in which they made their suggestions, we get 
some such answer as this : " I took a lot of pains ; I tried 
as hard as I could. ' ' But as soon as the pupil is made 
to realize that herein precisely lies his error, he promptly 
begins to make headway. 

Coue, therefore, has the best of reasons for drawing 
the following conclusion : 

"Above all, the will mus£ not intervene in the practice 
*Op. cit, p. 10. 






THE LAW OF REVERSED EFFORT 149 

of autosuggestion. This recommendation is absolutely 
essential. ' ' 

And a little further on he writes : 

1 ' This observation is of capital importance." It explains 
why we get such unsatisfactory results, in the treatment 
of moral disorders, when we aim at the reeducation of 
the will. What we have to work for is the education of 
the imagination. It is thanks to this difference of 
method that I have often been able to attain success 
where others, persons of conspicuous ability, have 
failed. ,,1 

We are now able to understand how great an advance 
has been made from the position of Paul Emile Levy, 
who looks upon autosuggestion as "the rational educa- 
tion of the will, ' ' and from that of Herbert Parkyn, who 
writes, "In developing voluntary concentration, light 
exercises in concentrating should be used at first, and if 
the practices be kept up regularly, it will become pos- 
sible to impose greater and still greater tasks upon the 
mind." 2 It is obvious from what has been said above 
that in some cases autosuggestion based upon effort will 
have the desired result ; but in many instances the result 
is negative, is the reverse of what we desire ; and in any 
case it can never compete with the potency of spon- 
taneous autosuggestion. 

To sum up, autosuggestion operates in accordance 
with two essential laws, the law of concentrated atten- 
tion, and the law of reversed effort. Now, in voluntary 

*Op. cit, p. 10. 

2 Parkyn, op. cit., p. 95. — Consult, in addition, Bonnet, Precis 
d'auto-suggestion volontaire, Roussel, Paris, 191 1. The subtitle 
of Bonnet's book is Education pratique de la volonte. This con- 
fusion is general among writers on the subject. 



150 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

suggestion, these two laws are in conflict. The work- 
ing of the second law tends to raze to the ground what 
we are building up by appealing to the first. 

To secure comparatively stable results, therefore, for 
voluntary attention in the strict sense of the term we 
must substitute something else, which we are about to 
describe. But the reader will understand why we have 
rej ected the phrase ' ' voluntary suggestion. ' ' It involves 
to some extent a contradiction in terms. 

Herewith we have indicated the chief innovation made 
by the New Nancy School, an innovation which will 
characterize this school and give it a definite place in 
history. With the law to which we have given the name 
of the law of reversed effort, Coue has introduced the 
elements of a positive revolution into the discipline of 
our mental activities. What we have to do, obviously, is 
not to substitute autosuggestion for the will, butto-s^per- 
add autosuggestion to the will, as a very different mode 
of activity; as one which can gain desirable ends where 
the will fails to gain them or does so inefficiently ; and 
as one which will only come to full fruition on condition 
that it is not confused with voluntary effort. What is 
the nature of this suggestion? That is the matter we 
have now to consider. Till to-morrow, or till a more 
distant future, must be left the elaboration of the mani- 
fold consequences with which the new idea is gravid. 



CHAPTER TWO 

THE OUTCROPPING OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS: 
RELAXATION 

We are, therefore, faced with the following problem: 
how to realize the conditions wherein the desired sug- 
gestion will come into being with the minimum of effort. 
In other words, we have to find an equivalent for volun- 
tary attention (in the sense in which physicists speak of 
the mechanical equivalent of heat), to discover a condi- 
tion in which there will be no voluntary effort, or at 
least one in which voluntary effort will be minimal, but 
which will none the less be quite as competent as atten- 
tion to keep our mind occupied exclusively or almost 
exclusively with a particular thought. 

In practice, this problem was partially solved by all 
those who, consciously or unconsciously, were pioneers 
in the use of autosuggestion. They one and all refer 
more or less explicitly to a peculiar condition, to which 
various names have been given. To mention a few of 
these : Liebault speaks of charms; writers of the Ameri- 
can and British schools, of concentration; Payot, the ed- 
ucationist, of meditative reflection; Paul Emile Levy, of 
collection (recueillement) ; Bonnet, of autohypnosis. 

These authors do not all refer to precisely the same 
condition, but in every case the state of which they 
speak is more or less akin to sleep. ■ It is characterized 

151 



152 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

by complete or partial immobility, and by partial suspen- 
sion of some of the mental faculties. But serious con- 
fusion arises in so far as these authors have failed to 
make the law of reversed effort their starting-point ; and 
in so far as they identify the state in question with an 
act of will, instead of contrasting it with an act of will. 
Some persons are fortunate enough to grasp the essen- 
tial nature of this condition, and they are successful 
with autosuggestion. Others, following the books or 
guided by the advice of authorities, taking their stand 
upon the will, make efforts, and achieve nothing more 
than debatable results. For it is just as impossible to 
carry out suggestion through the instrumentality of the 
will as it is to write poetry by the rules of prosody ; just 
as impossible (to use Bergsonian terminology) as it is 
for intelligence to do the work of intuition. We are 
dealing with different categories. 

We shall more readily grasp the affinities of the condi- 
tion favourable to reflective suggestion, if we recall our 
knowledge of the process of suggestion in general. 
There are, as we have learned, three phases in sugges- 
tion: during the second of these (preeminently dy- 
namic) ,-work, often a vast amount of work, goes on in the 
subconscious. This subconscious or unconscious, plays a 
conspicuous role in modern psychology, which is grad- 
ually revealing its attributes. The subconscious (the 
term does not mean an "inferior or subordinate con- 
sciousness," but a "hidden consciousness,' ' a conscious- 
ness that lies at a lower level than the familiar con- 
sciousness of everyday life), is comparable, to use Pierre 
Janet 's simile, to the deeper geological strata, those cov- 
ered by the superficial and only visible stratum, to which 



OUTCROPPING OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 153 

latter our ordinary consciousness may be compared. 
The subconscious is a storehouse of the memories that 
have lapsed from the ordinary consciousness, of the 
wishes and sentiments that have been repressed, of the 
impressions of a distant past. But it is far from being 
inert, for it contains in addition the subsoil waters 
which are unceasingly at work; it contains the sugges- 
tions which will well up into the open after their hidden 
passage. This is all imagery, but it serves, better than 
pure abstractions, to convey some notion of the complex 
reality we have learned to recognize in the subconscious. 

Now there are times when, there are states in which, 
these lower strata, rising as in a wave, pierce the crust 
and crop out on the surface, so that the superficial con- 
sciousness is more or less submerged and the subcon- 
scious becomes apparent. Sleep is the most character- 
istic of these conditions. Psychoanalysis has definitely 
proved that the subconscious is revealed in sleep; that 
during sleep what has been repressed rises once more 
to the surface and becomes manifest in the form of 
dreams which can be remembered in the waking state. 
We know, moreover, that the dream is a flow of images 
infinitely swifter and more copious than the flow of the 
waking consciousness; we know that in a minute the 
dream consciousness traverses scenes in which the dura- 
tion of several hours is simulated. The faculties of in- 
hibition, decision, effort, ratiocination, will, and volun- 
tary attention, appear to be in abeyance more or less; 
and everything happens in the dream consciousness as 
if these faculties, which during the waking state slacken 
the mental flow, had withdrawn their restraining in- 
fluence. 

But, quite apart from sleep, there are fairly stable 



154 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

conditions in which, though the superficial conscious- 
ness is not wholly suppressed, there is a tendency to the 
outcropping of the subconscious. First of all comes the 
state betwixt sleep and waking, just before we fall 
asleep, and just before we are fully reawakened. In 
the daytime, again, we have the various conditions use- 
fully subsumed under the name of reverie, which are in 
fact a miniature dream, a waking sleep. In reverie we 
abandon the struggle for life, we cease to control our 
thoughts, we give them free rein; once more the re- 
pressed rises towards the surface, there are waves of 
sadness or desire, deceptive images surging up from the 
depths of our being ; so closely do these resemble dream 
images, that psychoanalysts turn them to equal account, 
discovering in them the disguised and symbolical expres- 
sion of everything that we refuse to avow to ourselves. 
To sleep, declares Bergson, is to become disinterested. 
In like manner, to dream is to disinterest oneself from 
immediate material activities ; it is to disregard, for the 
nonce, all adaptation to everyday life, to its utilitarian 
solicitations ; it is to set sail upon the waters of the inner 
world. 

We may add that people vary much as to the degree 
in which they display a tendency to the outcropping 
of the subconscious. ' Since the condition which favours 
this outcropping is one of release from tension, one of 
relaxation of attention and inhibition, all the causes 
which predispose to such relaxation may promote the 
outcropping of the subconscious. Thus it is that woman, 
as contrasted with man, seems to be in closer and more 
continuous touch with the subconscious. Hartmann af- 
firmed this many years ago in his metaphysical termi- 
nology. Ribot gives a reason for it when he shows that 



OUTCROPPING OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 155 

the effort of attention is a muscular effort which, like all 
muscular effort, induces fatigue more speedily in women 
than in men, so that relaxation ensues earlier in the 
former. Still greater, in this respect, is the contrast be- 
tween children and adults. 

Furthermore, there are certain temperaments 1 pe- 
culiarly well equipped for communication with the sub- 
conscious; to use Flournoy's metaphor, they are " arte- 
sian wells" wherein the subsoil waters rise sponta- 
neously to the surface. 

Examples are furnished by those who display medium- 
istic phenomena, such as hallucinations and automatic 
writing, phenomena shown by psychoanalysis to belong 
to the domain of the subconscious. Additional instances 
are afforded by artists, and particularly those with true 
artistic genius, who feel as if their creative work were 
* 'inspired' ' by some other mind than their own. In 
most of these cases, if we subject them to psychoanalysis, 
we can prove that the presiding energy is that of the 
subconscious. 2 The revelatory character of art is doubt- 
less in most cases due to the fact that the artist gives ex- 
pression to that which everyone conceals and dissimu- 
lates — and yet to that which everyone feels the need of 
expressing. 

We have already seen that natural sleep favours sug- 

1 Such persons are characterized by exceptional and sometimes 
morbid sensibility of the nervous system. 

8 Psychoanalysis has been successfully applied to art, and 
above all to poetry. A whole literature has sprung up dealing 
with this subject. Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Lenau, 
myths, fairy tales, etc., have been ps}'choanalyzed. 

Consult the bibliography in Regis and Hesnard, op. cit. 



155 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

gestion. But the same may be said of all the states we 
have just been describing, for they all have certain 
physiological characters which they share with sleep. 
They are all characterized by relaxation, by a suspen- 
sion of inhibition, by an outcropping of the subconscious. 
Persons of the types mentioned in the paragraphs im- 
mediately preceding are more sensitive than others, not 
only to induced suggestion (this is a familiar fact), but 
also to spontaneous suggestion and to reflective sugges- 
tion. Such persons are the quickest to grasp the prin- 
ciples and methods of reflective suggestion, and are those 
who make the most rapid progress. 

But, some will object, if this be so, then reflective 
autosuggestion is dangerous, for it requires a relaxation 
of the active and "higher' ' faculties. To practise it 
successfully we must model ourselves upon the weaker 
kinds of temperament, upon women, children, and art- 
ists. However, this objection involves a vicious circle of 
argument, for autosuggestion likewise is an active and 
creative faculty, and is in many instances more power- 
ful than the ordinary will. You may speak of it, if you 
like, as a different kind of will, as a force which is 
latent in "weaker temperaments." There are certain 
persons whom we look upon as persons of "weak tem- 
perament" because they are autosuggestible and be- 
cause they are continually the victims of pernicious 
autosuggestion. But from the day when the key to sug- 
gestion is given them, the force which was fighting 
against them becomes their best ally, and we see these 
same individuals perform prodigies of energy. A 
knowledge of suggestion discloses to us that in the per- 
sons in whom we had glimpsed a taint of impotence, 
there really exists a power with which the will we pride 



OUTCROPPING OF TjEE SUBCONSCIOUS 157 

ourselves on so greatly is in many instances unable to 
compete. Moreover, when we grasp with increasing 
clearness the existence of our states of relaxation and 
reverie, it does not follow that thereby we have enfeebled 
our will and reduced our power of attention. It would 
be as reasonable to say that sleep reduces our muscu- 
lar energy when, precisely on account of the relaxation 
that takes place in sleep, it recuperates that energy. In 
a word, the will is one kind of force, and suggestion is 
another; their respective roles will be explained more 
clearly in the sequel; but we must not suppose that in 
working for the acquirement of the power of autosug- 
gestion, we are risking the loss of the power of the will, 
that we are throwing away the substance for the shadow. 
Far from it, autosuggestion, as soon as we have made it 
our own, will become a means for the fuller development 
of all our faculties, including the will. 

A passing observation is requisite here. It is admitted 
that women, whose character is in certain respects 
feebler than that of men, nevertheless display at times 
the most marvellous endurance and energy. From this 
some psychologists have inferred that the "will" of 
women is, potentially at least if not in actual operation, 
superior to that of men. But when, on the other hand, 
we are told that effort is muscular, that the will is in 
large measure inhibition, and that muscular energy and 
the faculty of inhibition are less in women, we find our- 
selves involved in flagrant contradiction. This contra- 
diction disappears if we consider the miracles of femi- 
nine energy as autosuggestive rather than as voluntary 
phenomena, as nervous rather than muscular; as phe- 
nomena in whose production the subconscious plays a 
great part — a fact which does nothing to lessen their 



158 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

value. 1 Contrariwise, for what may we not expect when 
we have gained methodical control over the force which, 
in spontaneous action, has already worked such mir- 
acles ? 

In the states and temperaments we have been describ- 
ing, there is usually a heightened emotional suscepti- 
bility. Reciprocally, again, it is possible that every 
emotion is a condition characterized by the outcropping 
of the subconscious, by a sort of earthquake which con- 
vulses the whole being, bringing the deeper strata to the 
surface. In certain emotional states the rapidity of the 
stream of consciousness recalls what occurs in dreams. 
Emotion is likewise an instigator of images, 2 a condition 
in which the inhibitive faculties appear to be thrown 
out of gear. Without embarking upon hypotheses which 
would for the moment be sterile, without asking whether 
the outcropping of the subconscious operates upon sug- 
gestion through the instrumentality of the heightened 
emotional susceptibility by which it is accompanied, or 
whether, on the contrary, the emotion operates in virtue 
of the outcropping which it seems to occasion ; without 
enquiring to what extent this activity depends upon the 
nervous system, and what nervous or other modifications 
are characteristic of it — let us confine ourselves to point- 
ing out the close relationship which exists between the 
two states, between, on the one hand, outcropping of the 
subconscious in association with increased emotional sus- 

*By what right should muscle be regarded a priori as "su- 
perior" to nerve? The only right that occurs to me is the right 
of the stronger. 

2 This is especially noticeable in the poet, for the images flow 
from his pen more spontaneously, more vigorously, and more 
rapidly, in proportion as his emotion is more intense. 






OUTCROPPING OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 159 

ceptibility, and, on the other, suggestibility (or auto- 
suggestibility) . 

Everything takes place as if suggestion, in order to 
bear fruit, must be buried in the subconscious ; and as if 
this fruition were facilitated by the outcropping of the 
subconscious. 

We are now beginning to realize in what direction we 
must seek the desired equivalent for voluntary attention, 
and the key to reflective suggestion. First of all we 
have to make use of, and in case of need to induce, con- 
ditions in which the outcropping of the subconscious 
occurs. The ways of doing this will now be considered. 



CHAPTER THREE 

EDUCATION OF THE OUTCROPPING: 
COLLECTION 

From what has gone before, it may at once be inferred 
that the education of the outcropping will make the soil 
favourable for the germination of suggestions. 

Pathological or exceptional phenomena are in many 
instances magnifications of the normal. Now in the 
case of persons endowed with mediumistic faculty, in 
those who have the power of automatic writing for in- 
stance, there has been an education of the outcropping. 
The subject, by the frequent repetition of an exercise, 
"develops himself,' ' thus rendering increasingly supple 
the mechanism by which the subconscious manifests it- 
self. But in ordinary life, without any departure from 
conditions that are perfectly normal, such an education 
is no less possible. 

At moments when we have a little leisure, when we are 
free from the pressing demands of outward activity, at 
times when we have a right to repose, let us abstain from 
the search for some futile distraction, let us refrain from 
absorbing toxins from the newspapers, and let us, in- 
stead, use our spare time for the education of the out- 
cropping. Let us practise ourselves (nothing is easier or 
less tiring) in summoning the subconscious, without go- 
ing to sleep, but so as to become accustomed to these 

160 



EDUCATION OF THE OUTCROPPING 161 

mixed states, wherein the ordinary consciousness is not 
completely annulled, but wherein it ceases to form a 
rigid cortex and becomes a transparent veil. In place of 
seeking repose in distraction, which rests the attention 
by changing its object, but continues to keep the atten- 
tion employed, let us seek repose in relaxation, in which 
the attention no longer tries to fix itself on anything. 
Then the most inward, the most repressed conditions, 
begin to pass through the mind in the form of evanescent 
images of mobile and rapid reveries. This will at the 
same time teach us to avoid making any effort, and ef- 
fortlessness is a habit we must acquire if we are to prac- 
tise autosuggestion. A good way of bringing about the 
requisite relaxation of the mind is to immobilize the 
body, or, to speak more strictly, to relax the muscles, for 
muscular relaxation seems to generalize itself and to 
promote the relaxation of the muscles of attention. 1 Any 
kind of meditation in which we withdraw into ourselves 
without making too much effort to think, is a form of 
outcropping. 

It will also be understood that when we recommend 
that relaxation should be substituted for distraction, we 
do not, in speaking of "distractions," think of those 
higher forms of art to which this term is often im- 
properly applied. Etymologically, to distract signifies 
to draw asunder, and applied to our minds it means to 

1 When Baudouin speaks of the muscles of attention, he is 
thinking mainly of the optic muscles which come into play when 
we fix our eyes on anything to which we attend. This is based 
on Ribot's demonstration that the effort of attention is a muscular 
effort. See above, pp. 154-155. But presumably the inward 
faculty of attention can be " exercised " apart from any muscular 
training. — Translators' Note. 



162 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

draw the mind from one thing to another. But true art 
has a very different function. It helps us to live within 
ourselves ; it helps the subconscious to rise to the surface. 
In the passivity, in the hypnosis (as Paul Souriau terms 
it), into which we are plunged by the contemplation of 
a masterpiece, we have perhaps the best, the most ideal 
example of outcropping. 

Artistic education, everything which promotes the 
general culture of the imagination, everything which 
teaches us to dream, to withdraw so effectually from the 
outer world that it no longer seems to exist for us (but 
without the voluntary effort that accompanies reflection 
properly so called) — all these things bring about the 
education of the outcropping. 

In the education of children, nothing could be more 
erroneous than to believe that in them imagination is 
an imperfect form of reason, so that imagination must 
be suppressed and must be replaced by the perfected 
reason. Imagination is something very different from a 
larval form of reason. It has its rights side by side with 
and independently of reason; it is a precious force for 
the individual, were it only as a medium for the outcrop- 
ping of the subconscious and as a precondition of sug- 
gestion. We must teach children to do justice to all 
their faculties; they must not let any one faculty en- 
croach; they must not, for example, allow imagination 
to usurp the place of reason ; they must cultivate every 
faculty, imagination as much as the rest, nay, more than 
the rest. Fairy tales, which certain "positive" -minded 
pedants would like to proscribe, are the starting-point 
of artistic education, and should on no account be neg- 
lected. 

The state of outcropping induced by a willed (but not 



EDUCATION OF THE OUTCROPPING 163 

voluntary 1 ) relaxation constitutes what we shall speak 
of as collection (le recueillement). At first sight there 
will seem to be a contradiction between these two terms, 
collection and relaxation, but the contradiction is ap- 
parent merely. As soon as the attention is relaxed, it 
becomes possible for all our inner life to flow together, to 
collect itself within us. Attention, if you like to phrase 
it thus, is dispersed over a large number of states of 
consciousness; but, conversely, these states are gathered 
together under the mind's eye, in so far as they can be 
gathered together. It is in this sense that we are "col- 
lected." We have gathered up our states, as the ears of 
corn are gathered up to form a sheaf; or rather, they 
have gathered themselves together into a sheaf. 

Let us add, finally, that psychoanalysis, above all in 
the form of autopsychoanalysis, constitutes a methodical 
education of the outcropping, for the simple reason that 
it is continually calling up the subconscious. In this 
sense, there can be no question that the analysis of our 
dreams and memories by psychoanalytic methods (which 
cannot here be described in detail) is a most valuable 
habit. 

But artistic education, the development of reverie, and 
the practice of psychoanalysis, will be greatly facilitated 
and reinforced by autosuggestion as soon as we know 
how to undertake it. Thus autosuggestion will favour 
the conditions which favour it in their turn, each acting 
and reacting on the other, accelerating their mutual 
progress. 

Let us, therefore, practise relaxation whenever we can. 

^his relaxation is the outcome of a decision of the will, but 
a decision in virtue of which the will abdicates for a season. 
"Relaxation" is precisely this abdication. 



164 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

With habit, it will grow increasingly familiar. The 
subconscious will become more neighbourly, and will 
answer more quickly to our call, without our finding it 
requisite to fly to any narcotic. ^ The habit of collection 
will enable us to dispense with the use of opium, of 
alcohol, or of the still more soothing tobacco. 
V^ To facilitate this collection, at the outset at least, we 
must by preference choose conditions in which we shall 
be disturbed as little as possible by external stimuli; 
we must select moments when silence prevails around 
us. Whenever possible, the body should be motionless, 
the muscles relaxed ; we lie on a couch or lean back in a 
comfortable arm chair ; we close our eyes. For exercises 
in collection these conditions are more or less optional; 
but they are essential when autosuggestions are to be 
made. Thus we shall realize the maximum of relaxation ; 
thus we shall attain the highest possible degree of collec- 
tion. 

In the foregoing pages, the writer has paid his tribute 
to the privileged mental position of certain tempera- 
ments, women, children, and artists being typical of 
these. It is possible that antifeminists, pedantic peda- 
gogues, and devotees of an overstrained "positivism," 
will find his remarks a trifle irritating, as invalidating 
some of their favourite arguments. But it is none the 
less true that the outcropping which is the essential 
characteristic of such temperaments must be cultivated 
by all who desire to avail themselves of the powers of 
well-controlled autosuggestion. If this implies a plea 
for nerve against the tyranny of muscle, so much the 
worse for those who contend that sport is the primary 
factor of civilization. 



CHAPTER FOUR 

A PSYCHOLOGICAL EQUIVALENT FOR ATTENTION : 
CONTENTION 

Collection however, with the relaxation and the out- 
cropping which characterize it, is no more than a pre- 
liminary stage. We were in search of an equivalent for 
attention, and it would be remarkable were we to find 
this equivalent in relaxation, which is the converse of 
attention. "We have to realize a state in which thought 
is sufficiently intense or sufficiently exclusive to make its 
power felt by the origination of a suggestion. But in 
the reverie which issues from relaxation, thought is 
scattered, mobile, and in a perpetual flux. 

Now, if we are in this condition, what happens when 
our attention is claimed by a new stimulus, as for in- 
stance by a noise, or by some haunting thought which 
returns like the shooting of an intermittent pain f Some- 
thing very remarkable takes place, and in current par- 
lance we are said to awake from our dream. The mov- 
ing swarm of mental images suddenly vanishes, as when 
the lighfed pictures vanish from the cinematographic 
screen. We are confusedly aware that a moment before 
we were in a world abundantly stocked with mental life, 
but we have forgotten what was passing in that world. 
A few only of the more striking images continue to 
emerge from the void; they are fleeting outlines, dis- 
connected and lifeless. Thus, without transitional stages, 

165 



166 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

our consciousness steps abruptly from marked expansive* 
ness to an extreme contraction. Even the very last 
images of the series have almost disappeared. Their 
passage was doubtless too rapid, when they were no 
longer hemmed in by the barrier of attention ; they 
could not fix themselves in the memory. (We know, in 
fact that attention is one of the conditions indispensable 
to memorization. When attention is relaxed, memory 
becomes enfeebled ; when we wish to learn by heart, we 
must begin by attending.) On the other hand, when 
we " awake from our dream' ' we feel as if we had re- 
turned from a great distance; we are like a diver who 
has come back to the surface. As Bergson would phrase 
it, we pass from one plane of consciousness to another. 
We break the net of associated ideas in which we were 
enmeshed ; and since there is now no association between 
the present and the immediate past, it is very difficult 
for the one to call up the memory of the other. 

Whatever the causes of this phenomenon, we here en- 
counter something that is comparatively rare in our 
mental life. Ordinarily the past prolongs itself into and 
merges in the present, so that we cannot grasp an iso- 
lated state of consciousness, unless we can isolate one by 
a somewhat violent act of attention. But here we have 
the impression of a mental vacuum. Nothing is present 
in consciousness beyond the stimulus which recalled us 
to ourselves, the noise, the thought, or whatever it may 
have been; nothing but this with its immediate associ- 
ates, the cause of the noise, the memory of some particu- 
lar person, or the like. Unless we violently strain our 
attention, the state of mind remains in comparative iso- 
lation. 

The same phenomenon is still more conspicuous when 



CONTENTION 167 

we awaken from a sound sleep. The dream upon which 
our mind was occupied usually lapses into complete ob- 
livion. Yet, as everyone who has practised the analysis 
of his dreams is well aware, the dream was there. Au- 
guste Forel writes: "I believe, on the other hand, that 
we all dream continuously when we are asleep. When 
I am unexpectedly aroused from sleep at any hour of the 
night, I can invariably seize the last broken link of a 
chain of dreams. But I forget it speedily unless I make 
a note of it or vigorously revive the memory now that I 
am awake." 1 So instantaneous, however, is the oncom- 
ing of oblivion, that many persons believe they have not 
dreamed; and the moment of waking is practically a 
moment of mental vacuity, when consciousness takes an 
entirely fresh start. It is true that in most of our re- 
awakenings the objects which first strike our senses are 
familiar to us. Their associative ramifications, which 
we are accustomed to traverse, promptly recall us to the 
framework of our daily life and to the matters with 
which our mind was occupied the day before. But the 
first time we awake in a strange bed, amid unfamiliar 
surroundings, we are apt to be utterly bewildered. Our 
perceptions tell us nothing, or almost nothing. The 
mind remains inert, contemplating these dumb percep- 
tions, failing to grasp the identity of things, for there are 
no associations to set it in motion along the timeworn 

1 Op. cit. — Here is the original German : " und glaube vielmehr, 
dass alle Menschen im Schlaf fortwahrend traumen. Man kann 
mich z. B. zu keiner Nachtstunde noch so unerwartet wecken, 
ohne dass ich wenigstens das letzte Bruchstiick einer Traumkette 
erwische, das ich aber sogleich wieder total vergesse, wenn ich 
es nicht sofort aufschreibe oder mir im Wachzustand energisch 
wieder vorstelle." 



168 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

paths. A single mental state, or it may be a small group 
of mental states, rises in the mental void and seems to 
occupy the entire field of consciousness. The mind is 
like a stagnant pool ; in the absence of any fresh current 
of images and ideas, it tends to remain stable. We are 
justified in describing the condition as one of mental 
immobility, of monoideism, one-ideadness, provided al- 
ways that we are careful not to construe these terms in 
too absolute a sense, but merely as representing a consid- 
erable approximation to the reality. 

Here we have a mental state wherein attention, with 
infinitesimal effort, realizes an exclusivism which, in the 
normal condition, can be realized solely at the cost of 
considerable effort. To this state, for which collection 
has paved the way, we may give the name of concentra- 
tion, a term which, in the sense above defined, now forms 
part of the vocabulary of the subject under discussion. 
But if we use this word, we must define it more carefully 
than do the Americans, who sometimes identify concen- 
tration with close voluntary attention, and sometimes 
with relaxation, so that in the end the term becomes 
quite unmeaning. The confusion arises out of the very 
nature of these various conditions which border upon 
one another so closely, and which pass into one another 
by brusque transitions at times, so that at first sight it is 
not always easy to know with what we are dealing. 

If we prefer to find another name, that of contention 
may be suggested for this peculiar form of attention, 
which is neither "attention" properly so called (tension 
towards an end), nor yet "relaxation" (in the French, 
"detente," i. e. the discharge or relaxation of attention). 
In contention, the idea is, as it were, folded back upon 
itself, and maintains itself in the field of consciousness 



CONTENTION 169 

without any sensible effort on our part. In these condi- 
tions, there is spontaneously secured that intensity of 
the idea which we set out to seek. Contention (concen- 
tration) is a psychological equivalent of attention, minus 
effort. 

To realize this condition, we must begin by realizing 
the preparatory outcropping, either by the deliberate 
attainment of collection or else by turning to account 
the spontaneous outcropping which characterizes the 
passage from waking to sleep and from sleep to waking. 
At such a time, we must, with the minimum of effort, 
permeate the mind with the idea of the desired modi- 
fications. Autosuggestion during the moment of first 
waking and during the last moments before we go to 
sleep is particularly valuable — the latter above all, for 
the machinery then set in motion has the precious assist- 
ance of slumber. 

"Many of us," wrote Paul Emile Levy a few years 
ago, "must have observed how favourable to the birth 
and ripening of new ideas is the drowsy state just before 
or just after sleep. We are really in a condition of slight 
hypnosis, but it is profound enough to be characterized 
by increased suggestibility. Besides, every one can 
judge for himself, and can push the sleep to the stage 
which he finds most propitious. These hours, when we 
are able to make use of them in such a way, are those 
most favourable to autosuggestion. 

"After no more than a few days' practice of these 
exercises in slight hypnosis and autosuggestion, we note 
that the mind concentrates itself upon the matter with 
far more facility, and that, concomitantly, autosugges- 
tion grows at once more potent and easier. ' ' * 

a Op. cit. 



^ 



170 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

We may add that, thanks to the law of reversed effort, 
it becomes more potent because it is easier. And the 
reason why it becomes easier is that the effort to think 
along the desired lines, which is still appreciable at the 
outset, becomes insignificant as soon as, by practice, we 
have acquired the requisite suppleness. The "muscles 
of attention,' ' like all the muscles, speedily become 
habituated to their task. 

This teaches us that if, as we have pointed out, train- 
ing in relaxation is indispensable, training in effort none 
the less has its uses. One who has accustomed himself 
to making great efforts during the ordinary waking state, 
and more particularly one who has accustomed himself 
to making great efforts of attention, will find that the 
slight effort of contention comes much more easily to 
him than it comes to other people, and that for this rea- 
son contention will more speedily attain its end. It 
follows that the various "exercises in concentration' ' in 
the waking state, exercises recommended by American 
authors, are by no means devoid of value. Speaking 
generally, all mental or scientific work, all methodical 
and regular memorization, will be found excellent for 
training the mind to make efforts in attention, so that 
attention grows more and more easy. We may, there- 
fore, follow the advice of Herbert Parkyn : 

' ' One of the best and simplest practices for developing 
concentration is to read a sentence in a valuable scientific 
work, the subject matter of which, in itself, is absolutely 
unattractive, and then endeavour to reproduce the idea 
expressed in the sentence, either verbally or in writing, 
or both. Having succeeded in obtaining, memorizing, 
and reproducing the idea expressed in the sentence, try 
several sentences at a time. Next take whole paragraphs, 



CONTENTION 171 

then pages, then chapters, and finally a whole book. 
There is no better exercise in memorizing and concen- 
trating than this." 1 

It may be added that all exercises which promote 
muscnlar development in general, all those which favour 
the growth of muscular energy, have their uses, provided 
that the pupil never neglects the special training of the 
attention. 

But the training of effort in general and of attention 
in particular are strongly recommended by many au- 
thorities, and therefore, without wishing to minimize 
their importance, we are inclined rather to lay stress 
upon their complements which are too often neglected. 
It is our task to emphasize the value of relaxation, of 
outcropping, of contention. 

Contention (concentration) is, as it were, a crossways 
where two contraries meet, attention and relaxation. It 
simultaneously presupposes the habit of attention and 
that of relaxation. 

Everyone, therefore, should cultivate both attention 
and relaxation ; and each must judge for himself by per- 
sonal experience whether he needs to devote peculiar 
care to one or the other. Most people are especially lack- 
ing in the power of relaxation; and this statement is 
more applicable to men than to women, to adults than 
to children. On the other hand, no one should neglect 
the training of attention; and in this case it is women 
rather than men, children rather than adults, in whom 
the faculty is deficient. 

To realize contention and to render suggestion effica- 
J Op. cit., p. 97. 



172 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

cious, we shall therefore choose, by preference and on 
principle, the moments betwixt sleep and waking, either 
before or after slumber. At such times, beginners will 
often find that contention is weak or unstable ; that the 
idea of physical pr mental improvement, instead of re- 
maining in the mind, is speedily dissipated. The ex- 
perimenter lapses into reverie, and in an instant the 
vagrant mind is thinking of anything in the world ex- 
cept what is desired. Sleep is too close at hand, and 
relaxation predominates over contention. If this should 
happen, the subject must for a time practise collection 
in the fully waking state. The condition, in this case, 
is less profound ; but the experimenter is fully conscious 
of what he is doing, and is therefore master of his 
thoughts. We should take the opportunity of suggest- 
ing to ourselves that henceforward the morning and 
evening suggestions will be more easily realized, and 
that the desired state will come into existence sponta- 
neously. If we find, in this waking collection, that the 
difficulty still continues, it will be because we have not 
sufficiently trained our powers of attention, and in that 
case such exercises as those recommended by Parkyn 
may be of considerable value. 

In general, however, we shall attain perfection if we 
reiterate the suggestion, making it an absolutely regu- 
lar daily practice. As with all such training, muscular 
or mental, this regularity is the first of all essentials; 
and the student need not be disheartened by his clumsi- 
ness in the early stages. 

For the rest, the above is a mere preliminary outline 
of reflective suggestion. In practice, it has to be rein- 
forced by the simple procedures now to be described. 



CHAPTER FIVE 

AUTOHYPNOSIS 

Outcropping, somnolence, even sleep, can be brought 
about by a means which we have not hitherto described, 
namely, by immobilization of the attention. When the 
attention has been immobilized for a long time upon a 
single object, it relaxes itself spontaneously, in part from 
loss of interest, and in part, doubtless, from fatigue. 

In summary classification, it may be said that there 
are two main kinds of immobilization of the attention : 

1. Fixation; 

2. Seesaw. 

In fixation proper, the attention is exclusively or al- 
most exclusively occupied by a single sensation. In the 
case of vision, for example, this may be the contemplation 
of a luminous point, a vivid sensation which has an at- 
tractive influence, standing out in a privileged manner 
against a confused or dark background. In the case of 
hearing, it may be some monotonous and continuous 
stimulus, like the roar of a waterfall or the confused 
noise emanating from a great crowd. 

As to immobilization by seesaw, we have examples of 
this in the noise of the waves beating on the shore, where 
two splashing sounds of different pitch answer one an- 

173 



174 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

other in an alternating song; in the tick-tack of a pen- 
dulum, where the alternation is between sound and 
silence ; in lullabies ; and in any kind of regular rhythm. 
As Bergson puts it, the attention ' ' oscillates between two 
fixed points, ' ' between two haunting sensations continu- 
ally repeated. 

What happens in these cases is well known. When 
the attention has been held for a long time, it grows 
weary. In the end we can no longer see what we are 
looking at, we can no longer hear what we are listening 
to ; relaxation ensues. This relaxation may pass on mto 
sleep. 

But the outcropping thus produced seems to differ 
to some extent from the forms of outcropping hitherto 
described. We are, in fact, aware that an obsessive idea 
or impression which is in the mind when we fall asleep, 
dominates the whole period of slumber. The fruitful- 
ness of overnight suggestions proves the universal valid- 
ity of this principle. We have likewise seen it unmistak- 
ably at work in the case of the sun which was unsolved 
when we went to sleep, and which is ready solved when 
we wake in the morning ; and we have seen it at work in 
the ease with which many persons can awake at an hour 
dictated by autosuggestion. The method is of very wide 
application, as anyone can satisfy himself by the simple 
practice of autosuggestion, which will prove far more 
convincing than any theoretical demonstration. It ap- 
plies, moreover, to all the states of somnolence and out- 
cropping, just as much as to profound slumber. Conse- 
quently, the states that result from immobilization of the 
attention are not likely to be psychologically identical 
with the states of relaxation pure and simple which were 
given as primary examples. Experience here confirms 



AUTOHYPNOSIS 175 

theory. In states resulting from immobilization of the 
attention, the idea of mental immobility remains domi- 
nant; from the first, we spontaneously suggest to our- 
selves this mental immobility. Consequently, although 
relaxation is in general characterized by reverie, by dis- 
persion of mind, by mobility, in these particular in- 
stances mental immobility is readily reestablished at the 
slightest solicitation, contention is favoured. 

To such states of outcropping, produced by immobili- 
zation of the attention, we propose to apply the name of 

HYPNOSIS. 

This definition of hypnosis is no more arbitrary than 
our definition of suggestion. It will justify itself when 
we come to speak of induced sleep. We shall see that 
the characteristic fact, in the great majority of cases 
universally described by the name of hypnosis, is the pre- 
liminary immobilization of the attention ; and wherever 
we find this cause at work, wherever we find it leading 
to outcropping, we are entitled to speak of hypnosis. 

Hypnosis facilitates suggestion because it favours 
contention. 

Obviously, when autosuggestion is our aim, the hyp- 
nosis must not be pushed to the stage of profound sleep, 
in which we shall no longer be able to control the direc- 
tion of our thoughts. But a moderate degree of hyp- 
nosis may be recommended for this purpose. 

The presence of a watch or a clock not far from the ear 
has a lulling influence. On suitable occasions, we may 
take advantage of the neighbourhood of a waterfall, a 
stream, the seashore ; or we may, in more modest fashion, 
turn to account the drip from a water-tap that is not per- 
fectly closed. Or, in a dark room, we may fix the gaze 
on a luminous point, on the motionless flame of a night- 



176 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

light, or on the nickering firelight. Everyone who has 
passed a vigil in a sickroom must be familiar with the 
hypnotic influence of the last named. Psychotherapeuts 
with a taste for complicated recipes tell us that a pecul- 
iarly fascinating influence is exerted by the flickering 
flame of a spirit-lamp when a large pinch of hemp 
flowers has been macerated in the spirit for twenty-four 
hours. For a few minutes or more we concentrate our 
gaze upon the flame or the luminous point, and when the 
eyes are tired out, we allow them to close. 

It matters little what process is chosen, or what simul- 
taneous processes are employed. 1 The value is not to be 
found so much in this or that recipe as in the principles 
of which they are the respective applications. Each one 
of us can think out for himself new and more practical 
applications, better adapted to the circumstances. The 
governing principle is the immobilization of the atten- 
tion, either by fixation or by seesaw. 

But, above all, we must be careful that the possibility 
of using physical adjuvants does not make us the slaves 
of outward circumstances. Already, indeed, we are far 
too much enslaved by such circumstances, thanks to the 
dogmas implanted in us by a short-sighted medical 
science from the sixteenth century down to our own day 
— a medical science which is ignorant of the better half 
of the human personality and is itself the worst of all 
suggestions. 

Furthermore, physical procedures are not the only 
methods for the production of autohypnosis. The at- 
tention may be immobilized in other ways than by an 
outward sensation. Immobilization can be brought 

1 Vision may be monopolized by a visual stimulus while sim- 
ultaneously hearing is monopolized by an auditory stimulus. 



AUTOHYPNOSIS 177 

about by a mental image, by an idea. Some can send 
themselves to sleep by counting, or by telling their beads, 
this being a sort of inward lulling. The verbal images 
evoked in such a manner arise spontaneously, without 
effort, owing to the fact that we have evoked them count- 
less times since childhood. The will is no more actively 
concerned than in the case of the luminous point, the 
flickering of the fire, or the sound of the waterfall. At- 
tention, once directed, clings from a sort of attraction. 
Sometimes sleep ensues ; and failing that, a certain som- 
nolence is invariable. If we practise this method in the 
evening, when we are already sleepy, it is ten chances to 
one that the coming of sleep will be greatly favoured. If 
this does not happen the first time, it will happen after 
a few days' regular practice. 

We must be careful to note that immobilization of the 
attention, if it is to produce its proper effect, must be 
carried out with no sense of strain ; we must be able to 
maintain it with the minimum of voluntary effort. In 
fact, when we have to do with external sensations of the 
type described above (the luminous point, the waterfall, 
etc.), our attention is in the end held in spite of our- 
selves. An effort, rather, is needed to disengage it. The 
flame of the nightlight will have produced the requisite 
impression when we find ourselves contemplating it in a 
state of mind which we wish only to prolong. We are 
doubtless able to turn our eyes away, but we have no 
desire to do so. The condition is analogous to that in 
which people often find themselves on first waking in the 
morning; they say to themselves that they could get up 
if they liked, but almost against their will they continue 
to snuggle under the blankets. It is when this state has 
been attained that we may allow our eyes to close, and 



178 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

may proceed to call up in the mental void the ideas which 
form the object of our suggestions. 

In like manner, when, wishing to immobilize the atten- 
tion, we employ for this purpose an internal state instead 
of an outward sensation, it is essential that the attention 
should remain spontaneously immobilized. This is 
what happens when we tell our beads or count a series of 
numbers, for here habit takes the place of the will, and 
the monotony of the internal utterance acts like the 
monotony of the ticking clock or the running water. 

This consideration should always guide us in the 
search for new methods of autohypnosis. 

As one of the curiosities of history, and further as a 
lesson in humility, we may point out that the states just 
described under the names of collection, contention, and 
autohypnosis, are described, with considerable psycho- 
logical acumen though not of course in modern psycho- 
logical terminology, in the precepts by which, for cen- 
turies past, the yogis of Hindustan have been accustomed 
to attain self-mastery. 1 

The two states whose acquirement must be the novice's 
first aim are known as "pratyahara" (mental examina- 
tion) and "dharana" (concentration of the mind upon 
a thought). 

In the precepts relative to the former state, which is 
preparatory to the latter, we read : 

' ' Seat yourself for a while and allow your thought to 
take its own course freely. It behaves like a frisky 
monkey. Let the monkey jump about; wait and take 
note. Your thought will entertain ugly ideas, so ugly 
that you will be surprised. But day by day, these err- 

*Cf. Ernest Bosc de Veze, Traite de Yoga, Daragon, Paris, 
1908. 



AUTOHYPNOSIS 179 

ings will become less numerous and less extensive. Dur- 
ing the first months you will have a thousand thoughts ; 
then you will have no more than seven hundred; and 
the number will progressively diminish." 

It would be difficult to give a better description of the 
reverie which follows relaxation, and of the rapidity of 
the stream of consciousness in this condition. But 
"wait and take note"; substitute patient exercise for 
voluntary effort ; and contention will be born out of the 
scatterbrain confusion. 

As for autohypnosis, we encounter it in yoga, with a 
mystical complexion. The sacred word Aum is repeated 
a myriad times, the three sounds A — U — M' being well 
separated, and uttered on the respective notes do — mi — 
sol. This, we are told, produces a mental transforma- 
tion in the subject, which is preparatory to great spir- 
itual progress. 

Let us return to autohypnosis, as described earlier in 
our own text. Since it can be induced by immobilizing 
the attention on a mental state, why should we not 
choose, for this mental state (in preference to the bead- 
telling or to the counting), the very idea which is to be 
the object of the suggestion? 

There is, in fact, no reason to the contrary, provided 
that the idea fulfils the requisite conditions, provided 
that it holds the attention rather than that the attention 
holds it. We must be able to think of it mechanically ; 
ere long in spite of ourselves, as if we were obsessed by 
it; in the same way as that in which we listen to the 
sound of running water. 

A very simple means of securing this is to condense 
the idea which is to be the object of the suggestion, to 



180 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

sum it up in a brief phrase which can readily be graven 
on the memory, and to repeat it over and over again like 
a lullaby. The state of hypnosis thereupon ensues, with 
the effortless contention characteristic of the condition. 
We pass unawares into the preliminary stage of hyp- 
nosis. Relaxation occurs without our noticing it; rev- 
erie is neutralized by the presence of an idea which 
makes around itself a mental void. The states we have 
analyzed above are now synthetized into a single state 
which shares the characters of them all; which exhibits 
phases recalling now one, now another ; but which differs 
from each. This condition is one of preeminent auto- 
suggestibility. If we graft it upon a condition of spon- 
taneous outcropping, as upon the morning and evening 
states bordering upon sleep, we shall obtain maximum 
results. But it may also be usefully attained during the 
waking hours. This method of repeating a phrase has 
often been recommended by American writers. 

If we employ the term contention in the sense pre- 
viously explained, we may reserve the name concentra- 
tion for the synthetic state now described. It is super- 
fluous to have two names for the same concept. We 
shall therefore define concentration as follows. Con- 
centration is a state of autohypnosis and of persistent 
contention with one idea, tine autohypnosis having been 
induced by the lulling influence of the idea on the mind. 
Moreover, this condition, like every synthesis, is far sim- 
pler in its concrete reality than it seems to be in the 
explanations and definitions we have to employ when we 
are describing it. 

Let us add that, to prevent the mind from wandering, 
it may be well to repeat the phrase aloud, or at least to 
(sketch its pronunciation with lips and tongue as we utter 



AUTOHYPNOSIS 181 

it mentally. This motor accompaniment favours the ac- 
quirement of the habit we wish to form ; gives it a certain 
solidity; and acts as a leash or leading string whereby, 
without effort, our thought is guided towards its object. 



CHAPTER SIX, 

GENERAL RULES FOR THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION 

We are now familiar with the practical principle upon 
which all reflective autosuggestion is based. 1 But when 
we reconsider all that we have said on the subject, it is 
natural that some anxiety should arise concerning the 
amount of time which it may be necessary to devote daily 
to the practice of autosuggestion. Concentration, as 
denned at the close of the preceding chapter, presup- 
poses that the object of suggestion has been condensed 
into a brief phrase, one which the memory can retain 
without appreciable effort. It would seem from this as 
if the suggestion could apply only to a restricted object, 
and that a fresh "sitting" would be necessary for each 
particular case : one suggestion to overcome shyness ; an- 
other to cure headache ; another to quicken the healing of 

1 In common parlance the word " suggestion " is sometimes 
employed to denote the process as a whole, comprising all its 
three phases integrally considered; and sometimes to denote the 
first phase alone. Thus we are said "to suggest something to 
ourselves" when we propose to our mind an idea which is to 
act as the starting-point of a suggestion. No serious inconven- 
ience arises from this double use of the term, for the context 
always makes the meaning clear. Still, when we deal with the 
opening phase only, it would be better to speak of " formulat- 
ing " or " initiating " a suggestion. We do not actually " make " 
a suggestion until it is successful. 

182 



THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION 183 

a sluggish wound ; and so on. This is, indeed, the way 
in which most authors expound the methods of auto- 
suggestion. We quote in full, as an example, Geraud 
Bonnet's prescription for the cure of stage fright. 

"Let us suppose that, on some approaching day, you 
have to sing at a private party or on a public plat- 
form. 

"You have a good voice, and you are quite familiar 
with what you have to sing ; you know that the audience 
will be friendly, and that success awaits you. 

"But you are panic-stricken; you feel certain that 
when the time comes you will be seized with stage fright 

1 ' You are sure that you will be terrified by all the eyes 
that will be concentrated on you when you appear on 
the platform; you will become uneasy, will sing wrong 
notes, and will finally break down. 

"This is an involuntary autosuggestion, which has 
taken possession of your mind. 

"You can combat it by a voluntary autosuggestion. 

"Isolate yourself in a room where no one will come to 
disturb ycu. To make assurance doubly sure, lock the 
door. Settle yourself comfortably in an armchair; or 
lie down, if you prefer it, on a sofa or on your bed. 
Close the eyes ; and if you are afraid of being disturbed 
by some noise from outside the room, plug the ears with 
cotton-wool. 

"Relax your body to the utmost, for this physical 
inertia favours mental passivity, and renders the mind 
more accessible to suggestion. When your nervous en- 
ergy is no longer dissipated in making movements or in 
other work, it will be concentrated in the brain, and you 
will be better able to devote it to the idea you wish to 
realize. 



184 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

"At the outset, endeavour to stop thinking altogether. 
Try to think of nothing at all for a time. Then direct 
your thoughts towards the idea which is worrying you, 
and counteract it by its converse, saying to yourself: 
* I don't suffer from stage fright; I sing well; I am per- 
fectly easy in my mind.' 

"Take a deep breath. Wait for a moment, and then 
say once more: 'I don't suffer from stage fright; I sing 
well ; I am perfectly easy in my mind. ' 

"Repeat the process several times; repeat it five times, 
ten times, or more, according to the amount of leisure at 
your disposal. 

"Have a number of such 'sittings' every day — in 
bed, at night, just before you go to sleep; during the 
night, if you happen to be awake ; in the morning before 
you get up, immediately after waking. 

"If you carry out this plan with assurance and con- 
viction, success is certain." 1 

Similarly, Herbert Parkyn gives us autosuggestions 
for success, autosuggestions for optimism, autosugges- 
tions for the avoidance of the disagreeable consequences 
of winter, and so on. In themselves, all these prescrip- 
tions are excellent. But if our task must thus be ap- 
proached in detail, if the sittings must be multiplied 
(even though, through practice, the duration of a single 
sitting be reduced to two or three minutes), we derive 
the impression that our lives will be chiefly devoted to 
the cultivation of autosuggestion. Above all will this be 
the case if the morbid symptoms, the defects, and the 
weaknesses we have to overcome, should assail us in great 
numbers. Perhaps we can keep all our suggestions for 
the mornings and the evenings? But then we are likely 

*Op. cit. 



THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION 185 

to fall asleep before we have finished the series, and we 
shall never be up in time in the morning. Or shall we 
parcel out the list, getting through it by sections on suc- 
cessive evenings and mornings? Shall each day have its 
morning and its evening bill-of-f are, as at a restaurant ? ) 
So be it. But now, training, the acquirement of habit 
by daily repetition, will go by the board. Day by day 
we shall need to make a new effort of thought. This un- 
duly complicated mechanism, in a life which in any case 
is often far from simple, will be likely to break down 
before long. 

Must we, then, reserve this concentration, this con- 
tinued repetition of a phrase, for a small number of very 
special cases, while adopting a different procedure for 
our habitual suggestions ? Such a course would seem to 
be indicated. 

For instance, we should do well to induce the condition 
of autohypnosis by a physical method, or by the repeti- 
tion of a phrase integrally summarizing the suggestions 
that have to be made. Having attained the requisite 
state, we should run the mind over the detailed list of the 
desired suggestions, fixing each one of them for a brief 
period in the centre of mental vision. And we should 
follow the advice of Paul Emile Levy, who writes : 

"Let us represent ourselves to ourselves, let us picture 
ourselves, as we would like to be — vigorous, robust, over- 
flowing with health. The greater the sharpness of out- 
line in this idea, the more salient it is, the more it 
assumes the form of an image, the better the prospects 
of its realization. What is well conceived will be easily 
realized. ' ' 

This method was at first recommended by Coue. We 
should, he considered,, formulate a general suggestion, re- 



186 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

peating it to ourselves a certain number of times ("Day 
by day, in all respects, I get better and better''). 
Thence we should pass to details, dwelling mentally for 
a brief space upon each of the improvements specially 
desirable for the moment. The general formula re- 
mained the same from day to day; the details varied 
with passing needs. 

But in the course of his long experience, Coue came 
across facts. which led him to simplify his methods, and 
to lay more and more stress upon the concentration pre- 
viously described. 

A female patient came to consult him for troubles of 
trifling importance, with no thought of using suggestion 
for the relief of the varicose ulcers from which she like- 
wise suffered. Coue employed in her case, as always, in- 
duced suggestion in the waking .state (or in a state of 
slight somnolence), as will be described in Part III. He 
enumerated the troubles of which the patient had com- 
plained, but naturally said nothing concerning the vari- 
cose ulcers, since he was not aware of their existence. 
At the close of the sitting, following his usual practice, 
Coue impressed upon the subject the importance of prac- 
tising autosuggestion every morning and every evening. 
After a few sittings, the patient was cured, not only of 
the troubles about which she had consulted the doctor, 
but also of the varicose ulcers, though she had given no 
thought to these when formulating her suggestions. Yet 
the ulcers had obstinately resisted various methods of 
treatment; and during the last few weeks before their 
sudden cure, no remedial cause was in operation other 
than the influence of suggestion. 

Coue formed a hypothesis which at that time he was 
inclined to regard as rather improbable. During the 



THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION 187 

collective sittings the patient might have been impressed 
by seeing the remarkable cures that were in progress. 
Some of these were cases of organic disease ; others were 
cases of nervous paralysis, and, since in the latter the 
cure was at times instantaneous, their effect upon the 
new patient's imagination was considerable. More or 
less unconsciously she must have formed in her mind 
some sort of association between these cases and the 
ulcers from which she herself suffered, conceiving the 
latter perhaps as sometimes immobilizing her legs as if 
she had a nervous paralysis. Under the influence of the 
suggestion "In all respects, I get better and better/' her 
subconscious had considered the ulcers Jto be one of these 
"respects," to be a particular case embraced by the gen- 
eral formula. 

The hypothesis seemed far-fetched. Nevertheless, 
Coue's attention had been directed to this line of thought. 
In the collective sittings, conversation between the 
patient and the doctor was always very brief, and a spe- 
cial questioning was requisite when details had to be ob- 
tained concerning this or that phenomenon. But as soon 
as Coue had become specially interested in this matter of 
unforeseen suggestions, he secured a number of reports 
confirming his hypothesis in the most categorical fashion 
possible. 

Under these conditions it became superfluous for the 
patient to go into details when formulating suggestions. 
Strange as it might seem, the general formula sufficed, 
provided the subject's mind lingered. upon the idea con- 
veyed in the words "in all respects." Henceforward 
the principle of detailed suggestions was abandoned at 
Nancy. The above-mentioned difficulty had vanished. 
Every morning and every evening, the subject would 



188 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

concentrate upon a general formula, as if repeating a 
litany. No attention to detail was needed. The sim- 
plest method proved also the most efficacious — a proce- 
dure so simple that at first scepticism naturally prevails 
as to its efficacy, and its full value can be realized only 
by those who have actually used it upon themselves. 

But we must make this reservation. The great major- 
ity of those who practise this form of autosuggestion 
have at the outset participated in some sitting of induced 
suggestion where the practitioner has gone into details 
and has formulated suggestions applying to all the 
troubles of which the patient has complained. When, as 
in the case of the varicose ulcers, some undisclosed affec- 
tion has been cured, we must doubtless admit that, in the 
atmosphere of the sitting and under its influence, a more 
or less unconscious association of ideas has been estab- 
lished in the mind of the subject between this particular 
trouble and the general form of suggestion. If the for- 
mula "in all respects" is to be truly efficacious, that for- 
mula must, it would seem, have been associated in the 
opening stage with all the details to which it may re- 
late. 

This implies that anyone who practises autosuggestion 
without having ever been subjected to induced sugges- 
tion (where the practitioner formulates details), will 
find it well to add something to the concentration of the 
morning and the evening in which he devotes himself to 
the general formula. In addition he should, during the 
day, from time to time produce a state of contention by 
simple collection or by autohypnosis, and should then let 
his mind review the detailed series of desired modifica- 
tions. Only in obstinate cases will it be necessary to do 
this every day. But the subject will find the practice 



THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION 189 

extremely useful whenever he has a few minutes to 
spare. 1 

With training, the attainment of these states will 
become increasingly easy. After a time, the subject will 
find that he need merely close his eyes to secure a suffi- 
cient degree of these states. 

| For, as Bonnet writes : ' ' One who is able to put him- 
self into a more or less profound condition of autohyp- 
notization, will soon cease to be dependent on any 
physical adjuvant when he wishes to enter this state and 
to become autosuggestible. After he has practised vol- 
untary training for a few sittings, he will probably be 
able, in the fully waking state, to master his thought, to 
guide it, to concentrate it, to isolate himself completely 
from the outer world. ' ' 2 

4 In this manner we may isolate ourselves more or less 
perfectly in a tram, in a waiting-room, whenever and 
wherever we have nothing particular to do and we feel 
that boredom is imminent. Even without closing the 
eyes we shall be able to isolate ourselves in the street, in 
a crowd, during a country walk, etc. Though at first 
we require to be surrounded with an atmosphere of calm, 
this becomes less and less essential. In the end we shall 
find ourselves competent to isolate ourselves to some ex- 
tent even in a tumultuous assembly, and when the con- 
ditions are extremely unfavourable. When a man is 
prey to an idea, the outer world no longer matters to 
him. He is in the state in which was Archimedes when 
he had, while in his bath, discovered his famous "hydro- 
ps an alternative, when time and opportunity are lacking in 
the daytime, detailed suggestion may be practised on first waking 
in the morning, and general suggestion the last thing at night. 
8 Op. cit. 



190 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

static principle/' and in which he appeared in public 
having totally forgotten to put on his clothes; the state 
in which was Ampere when, with a piece of chalk in his 
hand, he would walk behind a cab chalking on the back 
the details of the problem with which his mind was occu- 
pied, without ever noticing that his blackboard was on 
the march. Such cases of spontaneous contention, and 
a great many others that are less picturesque, prove to 
us the possibility of the requisite isolation. We can pro- 
duce it at will ; we must learn how to do this, and how to 
stop the process when it threatens to become absurd or 
dangerous. 

In a word, without making the practice of inward iso- 
lation at odd times a matter of daily obligation, without 
making it a task superadded to other tasks and increasing 
the burdens of the day, we can encourage the practice of 
self-isolation whenever suitable opportunities offer. 
However rarely we are able to do this, each time will be 
valuable as far as it goes. On the other hand, .when we 
feel that, as a preliminary, we must train ourselves in 
exercises of attention, we shall find it well, for a time, to 
do these exercises regularly. 

But regularly, daily, without a single exception, we 
must practise concentration in the morning and the 
evening. It must bear on the general and extremely 
simple formula ("Day by day, in all respects, I get bet- 
ter and better"). Each sitting will require a few min- 
utes only. Through regular performance, it will be- 
come a confirmed habit, and its technique will be stead- 
ily perfected. If, even to a minimal extent, we embrace 
concentration and suggestion themselves within the 
formula "in all respects," progress will infallibly oc- 
cur. 



THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION 191 

If, finally, at any time during the day, we should be 
seized by some physical pain or should be affected by 
some undesirable mental state (an obsession, a phobia, 
a disagreeable reminiscence or a gloomy foreboding, 
etc.), Coue, guided by experience, advises the follow- 
ing course: 

Attain collection, in the best possible physical con- 
ditions, as by sitting in a comfortable armchair, motion- 
less, with muscles relaxed and eyes closed. Localizing 
the suggestion, so to speak, to the matter in question, 
we say (inaudibly if needs must, but at least making 
the appropriate movements of articulation with tongue 
and lips) these simple words, "It is passing off," reiter- 
ating them rapidly until the trouble, if not cured, is at 
least sensibly relieved. A certain amount of improve- 
ment ought to be obtained in every case. Each time we 
utter the words, we shall do well to pass the hand rapidly 
over the affected part (the forehead when the trouble 
is mental). According to the magnetizers, these passes 
emit a healing "fluid." However this may be, the 
passes unquestionably aid in the fixation, the materializa- 
tion, of our thoughts; like the articulatory movements, 
they help to sustain it, and by their monotony they tend 
to promote hypnotization. It is in this light that Coue 
regards them, and whatever may be their mode of action, 
their value is incontestable. Toothache or headache, 
however severe, a coughing fit, however violent, will al- 
most invariably and whether passes are made or 
not, yield to this apparently puerile proceeding. In 
one experienced in the method, in a person accus- 
tomed to practise general suggestion every morning 
and every evening, relief will ensue within a few min- 
utes. 



192 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

But here, as always where suggestion is concerned, the 
finer shades are of the utmost importance. For example, 
success would be far more dubious were we to employ 
the formula "It has passed off," or "I have no pain." 
The trouble, being actually present, bluntly contradicts 
the assertion each time it is made. On the other hand, 
the elastic formula "It is passing off" does not arouse 
an internal protest. Furthermore, the words must be 
repeated very rapidly. * * There is no harm in gabbling, ' ' 
Coue tells us. If between our successive affirmations, 
"it is passing off," we allow an interval of several sec- 
onds to elapse, there is time for us to think ten times 
over, "it is not passing off." In that case we may be 
surprised to find that the trouble is getting worse in- 
stead of better. As we are pronouncing the words, under 
our breath if this is necessary, but out loud if there is no 
hindrance to doing so, we should be carried away by the 
whirlwind of their speed, so that there is not a free 
moment for the contrary assertion. The beneficent 
thought must not allow the maleficent thought to get a 
word in edgewise. 

When the pain or the undesirable mood has persisted 
despite our best endeavours, we should renew the special 
suggestion, just before we fall asleep at night, using 
slumber as an aid to suggestion. When we wake next 
morning the benefit will be plain. 

In like manner, whenever we find a difficulty in going 
to sleep, we should let the mind be swept away, as it 
were, by a torrent of words, as we incessantly articulate 
the phrase "I am going to sleep" — having first as- 
sumed our favourite position for slumber, and having 
forbidden ourselves to change it on any pretext. Above 
all must we be careful never to allow ourselves to think 



THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION 193 

1 * I want to go to sleep. ' ' The mere fact of invoking the 
will suffices to prohibit sleep, and this for two reasons. 
In the first place, the law of reversed effort comes into 
operation; secondly, the essential characteristic of sleep 
is relaxation, and consequently sleep cannot be the out- 
come of an act of will, since will is a state of tension. 
Moreover, we must not be weary in well doing ; we must 
not be satisfied with a couple of minutes ' practice of the 
method, then breaking off with the naive intention of 
finding out whether we have gone to sleep. Naturally, 
we discover that we are not asleep; and, since we have 
deliberately put ourselves into a .suggestible condition, 
we are now affected with a countersuggestion which nul- 
lifies the results of our previous labours. 

The finer shades are of tJie utmost importance. Per- 
sonal experience will teach us these shades, which must 
be felt rather than understood and explained. Early 
failures must be attributed to the fact that we have 
erred in some of the details, and we must never allow 
ourselves to be discouraged. After we have felt our way 
for a time, we shall suddenly discover one day that 
mastery has come to us. When a beginner complains 
that results are slow in their advent, Coue is fond of 
saying, if the patient is a woman, "Madam, if I were 
to put a Lebel rifle into your hands, you would prob- 
ably have no idea how to use it. But this would not 
mean that the rifle was at fault." 

The finer shades are of the utmost importance. One 
of Coue's supreme merits is that he has grasped this fact. 
A detail which proves his psychological acumen is the 
distinction he has established between the practice of 
general suggestion and the practice of special sugges- 
tion. In the case of the latter, as we have just pointed 



194 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

out, he recommends that the formula should be uttered 
with the utmost possible speed, should be gabbled, in 
fact. On the other hand, the general formula for morn- 
ing and evening use should, he tells us, be pronounced 
" piously/ ' with all the words separately stressed, and 
with special attention to the phrase "in all respects." 
At first sight the distinction seems arbitrary. We are 
inclined to fancy that it is a deliberately introduced 
complication, intended to strike the imagination by its 
very illogicality, as do the bizarre prescriptions of char- 
latans. But this is a total misconception. 

Indeed, a little thought will convince us that nothing 
could be more logical than Coue's advice. Though he 
fails to give an express reason for the distinction he 
draws, the reason is not far to seek. The general for- 
mula (and, above all, the phrase "in all respects") is 
closely associated in our mind with the idea of all the 
desired ameliorations. If, by a brief silence, when a 
state of concentration prevails, we leave the imagina- 
tion free to follow up its own clues, it will probably, 
therefore, get to work on the list of ameliorations. Now 
this is just what is wanted, for thus we initiate a process 
which will readily be continued in the subconscious.. 
Especially overnight, just as in the case of the arith- 
metical problem, do we initiate a suggestion which, dur- 
ing sleep, will ramify, multiply, develop the whole of its 
implicit content. In the intervals of silence between the 
repetitions of the formula, the development of the 
schema is set in operation. We secure the formation of 
a spontaneous procession of images. For reasons with 
which we are now familiar, this is preferable to a pro- 
cession of images voluntarily induced ; and there will be 
less risk that the imagination will stray from the ap- 



THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION 195 

pointed path, as it tends to do in those who are little 
accustomed to concentration. 

When, on the other hand, special suggestion is being 
practised, there is no such associated train of thought, 
and errancy will be far more likely. Furthermore, and 
above all, since special suggestion is most commonly put 
in practice at times when the subject is actually suffering 
from some" mental or physical trouble, there is consider- 
able risk that the idea of this trouble may slip into any 
interstices in our repetition of the formula of suggestion, 
and may thus lead, as we have explained, to the very 
reverse of what is wanted. 

We have dwelt upon this example to show how, in the 
practice of the New Nancy School, everything is based 
upon the most precise observation and upon the keenest 
psychological insight. 

The foregoing analyses may have aroused in the read- 
er's mind an impression that autosuggestion is a very 
complicated affair. The mechanism of autosuggestion is, 
indeed, complex. But the operation of this machine is 
simple enough, as the following summary of funda- 
mental rules will show: 

1. Every morning and every evening, betwixt sleep 
and waking, practise concentration upon the formula of 
general suggestion. {"Day by day, in all respects, I get 
better and better. 99 ) 

2. When, during the waking hours, you are unex- 
pectedly assailed by some mental or physical trouble, 
have recourse to the particular suggestion "this is pass- 
ing off." Should the trouble persist, repeat this in the 
evening before going to sleep. 

3. As opportunity offers, attain the state of conten- 



196 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

tion, either through simple collection or through auto- 
hypnosis. Then call up as vividly as possible the image 
of the desired bodily and mental ameliorations. 

4. Cultivate the faculty of relaxation and the prac- 
tice of collection (art, imagination, the habit of collec- 
tion). Cultivate also the faculty of sustained attention 
(bodily and mental exercises, regular exercises in learn- 
ing by heart). 

Here we have all the essentials. By adopting them we 
may and should attain notable results, though further 
advice will be given in the sequel. The most important 
of these four rules is the first, which must never be 
broken. It is the simplest as well as the most indispen- 
sable. Let us add that the student must never forget 
the law of reversed effort. He must invariably pay 
heed to Coue's advice: " Above all, be careful never to 
let the will intervene in the practice of autosugges- 
tion.' ' 

It is obvious that the method here prescribed is dis- 
tinguished by its extreme simplicity from other methods 
now in vogue. 

In view of this simplicity, what estimate shall we form 
of other methods, for which numerous and complex pro- 
cedures are requisite? How far are these procedures 
likely to be of any value ? 

Let us consider an example which may help us to 
answer the question. Geraud Bonnet (op. cit.), among 
a number of prescriptions for autosuggestion, gives the 
following : 

"Get a transparent glass funnel holding from one to 
two pints. 

"When all the preliminary conditions requisite for a 
good operation have been secured, fill the funnel almost 



THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION 197 

to the brim with some highly coloured fluid, such as red 
wine. 

"Place the stem of the funnel in an empty bottle, 
having first plugged the stem with a good thickness of 
absorbent cotton-wool, in such a fashion that the flow 
is limited to a fine stream, or the fluid even emerges drop 
by drop only. 

"With a few preliminary trials and by packing the 
cotton-wool more or less firmly, you will be able to ar- 
range that the funnel will take ten minutes, fifteen min- 
utes, or half an hour to empty itself. 

"Place the apparatus on a table and sit down op- 
posite to it, in a comfortable position, one which you 
will be able to retain for a long time. You may rest 
your hands on your knees or on the table, or you may 
rest your elbows on the table and your head on your 
hands. The bottle with the funnel should be quite near, 
at a distance ranging from five to fifteen inches. 

"Just before you settle down, fill up the funnel, and 
the fluid will begin to drip into the bottle. 

"Keep your gaze fixed on the upper surface of the 
fluid in the funnel, never permitting your attention to 
wander from this surface, or from the curve which rep- 
resents it. Gently but continuously the level falls, and 
the curve which represents it insensibly diminishes, until 
at last it reaches the top of the cotton-wool plug and all 
the fluid has percolated. 

1 ' While the descent is in progress, your gaze gradually 
lowers moment by moment. You will feel a continuous 
impulse to close your eyes, but you must resist this im- 
pulse. Should it become too strong, and interfere with 
your sight, open the eyes very widely by lifting the 
upper lids. 



198 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

"If, nevertheless, the uneasiness proves too much for 
you, desist and take a rest. Another time you will be 
able to continue longer; and in the end you will find 
yourself able to go on gazing energetically until the close 
of the operation, until all the liquid has percolated. 

"Throughout the sitting, you must do your utmost 
to avoid noticing the noise which is made by the drip 
of the fluid into the bottle. This tends to distract your 
attention, and makes the exercise difficult. If it becomes 
too importunate, plug the ears with cotton- wool. ' ' 

After detailing a number of similar exercises, Bonnet 
concludes as follows : 

"The foregoing exercises, in which we have recourse 
to the sense of hearing and the sense of sight, may unex- 
pectedly eventuate in the involuntary production of the 
hypnotic state. 

"In fact, Braid's fundamental method for inducing 
hypnotization consisted in fixing the attention by the 
concentration of thought. 

"Now in all the exercises I have been describing, and 
in all the analogous exercises we can imagine employing 
for the same purpose, these conditions are realized, or at 
least the subject attempts to realize them. 

"It would seem, therefore, that the operation ought to 
terminate, or may possibly terminate, in hynotization. 
. . . There is no harm in that, and the prospect need 
not greatly disturb us. Indeed, we may rather be 
pleased, for we can turn it to useful account." 

Let us at once point out that the author displays a 
certain confusion when he is speaking of these exercises. 
What does he propose to educate? Is it the effort of 
sustained attention? Or is it, on the other hand, auto- 
hypnosis? Bonnet's objective is obviously the effort 



THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION 199 

of attention. Nevertheless, if the experiment should 
culminate in autohypnosis (and consequently in relaxa- 
tion), this matters very little and may even be advan- 
tageous. Such confusions throw the pupil off the track. 
They are the same as those made by the Americans in 
the use of the word concentration. The error, identical 
in all cases, lies in considering training in suggestion as 
training of the will. Hence the contradictions that 
ensue. 

In practice it would be better to know precisely what 
is the aim of the particular exercise we are to under- 
take. That is why, in our opinion, the exercises must 
be simplified; that is why the exercises which keep the 
attention awake, must be sharply distinguished from 
those which immobilize it in order to induce hypnosis. 
Among the former must be classed the exercises in memo- 
rization recommended by Herbert Parkyn, and it is these 
which we advise for the development of sustained volun- 
tary attention. But for the development of autohyp- 
nosis, we can use any sort of exercise in fixation. In 
that case, however, the more the will is in abeyance, the 
more rapidly is hypnosis likely to ensue. 

As a general rule, therefore, let us choose simple ex- 
ercise. Nevertheless, we do not underrate the occasional 
value of those of a somewhat complicated character, those 
for which comparatively elaborate preparations are 
needed. These seize the imagination, and often impress 
us in spite of ourselves, just as do old wives' prescrip- 
tions. People are inclined to disbelieve in the efficacy of 
any tMng simple; every doctor is well aware of this truth, 
and every doctor takes it into account in his advice to 
his patients. All the same, the retaining of complicated 
methods cannot be recommended except for simple- 



200 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

minded persons, who would find it very difficult to under- 
stand the true mechanism of autosuggestion. The prac- 
tice of elaborate exercises substitutes spontaneous sug- 
gestion for reflective suggestion, for the patient imagines 
that the prescription does the work, whereas the real 
agent is the imagination itself. It is much better to 
imbue our mind with the simple law which regulates auto- 
suggestion, and to put this law into practice with equal 
simplicity. But routinism is so prevalent and prejudice 
is often so powerful that many persons find it difficult 
to accept the law in all its simplicity. 
{ There is one group of exercises which requires special 
mention, for they have been recommended in all ages as 
aids to the "development of mental force." We find 
them already in the yoga of Hindustan, and we en- 
counter them once more in the teaching of the ultra- 
modern American schools of autosuggestion. I refer to 
breathing exercises. Is their historical relationship to 
autosuggestion a mere chance, a mere matter of tradi- 
tion, or has it a logical basis? 

As most people know, the method consists in the daily 
practice of deep breathing, which may or may not be 
accompanied by movements of the limbs. Through train- 
ing, the subject becomes capable of holding his breath 
for a longer time, and can maintain an interval between 
inspirations and expirations. It is recommended that 
suggestion should be practised simultaneously with the 
breathing exercise. We may quote Bonnet in this con- 
nection : 

"Let us suppose that we wish to rid our mind of a 
feeling of gloom. The opposite of gloom is cheerfulness. 
The suggestion should bear upon the idea, 'I am cheer- 
ful. ' 



THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION 201 

"The phrase is simple. Suppose we desire to use 
respiratory movements of average depth. The move- 
ments of inspiration and expiration have approximately 
the same duration and are separated by very brief inter- 
vals. During inspiration the subject thinks 'I am/ and 
during expiration ' cheerful. ' 

' ' Since this operation entails very little fatigue, it may 
be repeated as often as you like, twenty times, fifty 
times, a hundred times, until thought ceases, or turns to 
something else, or until an almost unconscious mech- 
anism comes into play. 

( "Deep breathing may likewise be practised with the 
same associations. But here, since each phase of the 
complete respiration is greatly prolonged, the entire 
autosuggestion 'I am cheerful' may be made during 
inspiration and repeated during expiration. A variant 
would be to do nothing in the way of suggestion during 
the respiratory movements, and to reserve the thought 
'I am cheerful' for the apparent rest which terminates 
and follows expiration. In this case the subject must 
be careful to keep his mind a blank during expiration 
and inspiration." 

There can be no question as to the physiological value 
of breathing exercises. Whatever promotes bodily well- 
being must obviously provide a solid foundation for 
mental vigour, and it will consequently favour autosug- 
gestion. But why, among the numerous methods for 
developing the physique, should breathing exercises have 
become specially associated with suggestion ? 

The reasons, I think, are easy to discover. In the first 
place the sensation of wellbeing which always follows 
the drawing of a deep breath, unquestionably favours 
the working of any ameliorative suggestion. The images 



202 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

of vigour and health which we desire to evoke find a 
mainstay in this feeling. Furthermore, by its regular 
rhythm (of which the exercises make us aware), breath- 
ing exerts a stimulus analogous to that exerted by every 
rhythm that has a lulling influence, a stimulus which 
immobolizes the attention and tends to induce hypnosis. 
Finally, the relations between the faculty of attention 
and the function of breathing are well known. These 
considerations suffice to explain the suggestive value of 
respiratory exercises. 

Herbert Parkyn goes further, and believes that there 
is a large element of suggestion in the physiological 
value of the much-belauded breathing exercises. If this 
be so, the fact does not render the value any less real. 
In order to obtain still better results, he recommends 
that respiratory exercises should be reinforced by the 
simultaneous practice of reflective suggestion: 

"Remember to employ autosuggestion while you exer- 
cise, for you would not be taking the exercises unless you 
expected to accomplish something through them, and the 
mind is such an important factor in bringing about the 
results you desire, that you should direct your thoughts 
systematically and intelligently. 

"For instance, if you are breathing to improve your 
general health, use autosuggestions like the following: 

1 ' The air is one of the life essentials. I am now breath- 
ing deeply and it feels so good to get this fresh air into 
my lungs. I know I shall feel better for it/ . . . 
Every deep breath stimulates the heart's action and in 
this way assures better nutrition to every cell in the 
body." 1 

My chief reason for analyzing these various exercises 
*Op. cit, 126-7. 



THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION 203 

has been my wish to show the reader how he can himself 
analyze the numerous exercises, respiratory and other, 
recommended in current manuals of autosuggestion. 
What these manuals chiefly lack, in most instances, is 
grasp of principle and knowledge of method. In the 
advice they give, we always find more dross than gold; 
there is invariably a quantity of rubbish to throw away. 
When any particular exercise is recommended, we must 
ask what useful purposes it can serve (in promoting 
attention, collection, autohypnosis, contention, or con- 
centration). Relying on the general principles formu- 
lated above, we can approximately judge whether and to 
what extent the exercise is well adapted to attain its end. 
Above all, avoid falling into a superstition about ex- 
ercises; and avoid an undue multiplicity of exercises. 
We know that the practice of autosuggestion is simple 
and easy; that it need not occasion any loss of time; 
that everyone can and everyone should acquire the art. 
The morning and evening concentration is the basis of 
the whole thing."' Exercises are no more than adjuvants, 
doubtless of great value. But we must be careful not to 
overestimate their importance. 



CHAPTER SEVEN 

EXAMPLES AND SPECIAL RULES 

We are now acquainted with the chief rules which must 
be observed during the deliberate practice of autosugges- 
tion. In addition to morning and evening concentration, 
we have referred to specialized suggestions which have 
to be formulated from time to time as need arises, and 
to detailed suggestions which have to be run through 
the mind in series as opportunity offers during the 
course of the day. 

The practice of general suggestion is simple enough. 
As regards particular suggestions, on the other hand, as 
regards those suggestions of which general suggestion is 
a condensation, it will be well to enter into some detail 
and to deal with concrete instances. 

First of all, what results are we entitled to aim at ? 

It may be affirmed that reflective suggestion is of value 
in all domains where we have seen spontaneous sugges- 
tion at work. In particular, since the task will often be 
to uproot harmful spontaneous suggestions, it is well to 
be aware, as a matter of principle, that whatever sug- 
gestion has done, suggestion can undo. This is of great 
value from many points of view. We have seen that in 
his first awkward attempts, the subject sometimes sug- 
gests to himself the very opposite of what he desires. 
This happens either from excess of effort, which sets the 

204 



EXAMPLES AND SPECIAL RULES 205 

law of reversed effort in operation; or else because, be- 
tween the beneficent affirmations, silences intervene dur- 
ing which the converse affirmation is more or less wit- 
tingly repeated. Some readers may take fright at this 
warning, and may at once renounce the idea of han- 
dling so dangerous a weapon, which may explode in your 
face at the breech. But if whatever suggestion has 
done, suggestion can undo, the difficulty will be sur- 
mounted, the danger will vanish, and after a little prac- 
tice the subject will be able to handle his weapon with 
perfect safety. 

Let us add that the converse of the above principle 
does not hold good. It would be false to say that sug- 
gestion has been the cause of whatever suggestion can 
undo. We encounter various troubles, some functional 
and some organic, in which cures are daily effected by 
autosuggestion although they were in no way caused by 
an antecedent suggestion. 

Whether the cause of the malady be or be not suggest- 
ive, the first task of reflective suggestion will obviously 
be to counteract the evil, regardless of its origin. But 
in this negative role of suggestion we must do our ut- 
most to avoid using negative formulas. We must not 
say "this or that will not recur"; for in doing so we 
call up once more the idea of the trouble which is to be 
dispelled, and tend to impress it on the mind side by 
side with the idea of cure. Thus, as in the case of effort, 
there will arise two conflicting suggestions, which may 
neutralize one another more or less. We should employ 
by preference a positive and genuinely creative formula. 
The neurasthenic might say: "No longer shall I be, less 
and less shall I be, the victim of the gloomy thoughts, 
of the phobias from which I have hitherto suffered." 



s 



206 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

But he will do much, better to say: "From to-day on- 
wards, and increasingly day by day, thoughts will flow 
into my mind which will be unlike the old thoughts ; they 
will not necessarily be light thoughts, unduly lively, 
which would do outrage to my sufferings; they will be 
ideas of a serious complexion, but ideas full of certitude, 
confidence, and hope." The tubercular patient might 
say: "My system is resisting the disease, the microbes 
are becoming less numerous every day, and are being 
eliminated; I am not so short of breath, sleeplessness 
is less persistent, the cough is not so troublesome, there 
is less blood in my sputum, the night sweats are less 
frequent and less copious;" and so on. But he will be 
wiser to say: "Day by day I gain strength and feel 
stronger; I breathe more easily, more deeply, and with 
greater freedom; I have better appetite, a large appe- 
tite, an irresistible appetite, and I assimilate my food 
perfectly ; I sleep better and better, more soundly, falling 
asleep directly I put my head on the pillow ; my slumbers 
are unbroken, so that even a thunderstorm cannot wake 
me ; 1 thanks to this improved assimilation, to this sleep, 
to this spontaneously deep breathing, my health is being 
reestablished; my blood grows richer; my white cor- 
puscles become more numerous and are increasingly ac- 
tive. Each day I am capable of a little more muscular 
exertion, but I never overdo it; after taking exercise 
I find that my skin remains dry like that of a person in 
good health. Now I turn to the deeper cause of the 
trouble ; this cause being attacked, the effect will disap- 
pear, and all the symptoms, whatever their kind, will be 
relieved, whether I am aware of their existence or not." 
To sum up: whenever the mention of details would 
1 A11 these results have been obtained in tubercular patients. 



EXAMPLES AND SPECIAL RULES 207 

involve the use of a negative formula, it will be better 
to rest content with a general formula. To this, there- 
fore, we are often limited in dealing with symptoms. 

In other words, if in actual fact reflective suggestion 
must often be negative, its mode of expression must re- 
main as positive as possible, and the logical distinction 
between positive and negative suggestions may be ig- 
nored in practice. This distinction cannot provide us 
with a principle of classification. In the examples now 
to be given we shall avail ourselves of the classification 
we have already used in the case of spontaneous sugges- 
tions, speaking of them as representative suggestions, af- 
fective suggestions, and active or motor suggestions. 

In the representative domain, every one of us should, 
from the first, secure appreciable results in the develop- 
ment of the memory. 1 We should never say to ourselves : 
"I have no memory; I am losing my memory; I have 
reached the age when memory begins to fail." We 
should affirm that our memory in general is excellent, 
that the special memory we are in search of is just coming 
back, that we shall always remember what we wish to 
remember without any trouble. We shall not allow a 
failure of memory, or two or three failures in brief 
succession, to disconcert us, and we shall never permit 
ourselves to regard them as signs that our memory is 
decaying. The trend of contemporary psychology is to 

1 In all the examples which follow, the reader will do well to 
collate them with the descriptions of the corresponding spon- 
taneous suggestions, given in Part I, Chapters III to VIII. 
For the successful practice of reflective suggestion, we must call 
up the memory of the mental state that prevails during the initia- 
tion of the corresponding spontaneous suggestion, and must 
realize an analogous condition. 



208 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

confirm the theory that all our memories are stored up 
in the subconscious, even those memories which seem to 
have been utterly lost. In profoundly hypnotized sub- 
jects, we are able to observe the revival, the "ecphory" 
(as the biologist Semon, followed by Auguste Forel, 
terms it), of buried memories. But that which hetero- 
suggestion can achieve in induced sleep, autosuggestion 
can likewise achieve to a considerable extent. 

All the intellectual faculties can be developed by sug- 
gestion. Let us be careful to avoid being led astray by 
fallacious physiological considerations. William James 
pointed out that the most trivial thought must affect 
brain structure, inasmuch as it left an imprint on the 
brain. Attention, above all, can be greatly developed 
and facilitated by suggestion. It is one of the conditions 
of suggestion, but becomes in its turn an effect of sug- 
gestion; thus an alternating cycle is set up, rendering 
rapid progress possible. If, at the outset, we have an 
unduly strong tendency towards mind-wandering, regu- 
lar practice will enable us, by degrees, but easily, to 
correct this fault. 

Nay more. In cases where, in former days, it was 
considered necessary to make a great effort to fix the 
attention, as in learning by heart and in other mental 
work, we now realize that better results can often be ob- 
tained by suggestion than by effort. We have seen how 
the subconscious can solve a problem during sleep. Let 
us profit by this observation. Practical experience will 
convince us that, by concentrating the mind on a ques- 
tion, we shall to a great extent spare ourselves, the effort 
which would otherwise have been requisite. We shall 
initiate subconscious activities, and the work will then 
go on spontaneously within us. In what cases and to 



EXAMPLES AND SPECIAL RULES 209 

what an extent will this substitution be possible ? That is 
a matter for the future to decide. 

Artists are aware, by implication at least, that their 
inspirations come from the subconscious, and to evoke 
them they encourage conditions of outcropping. But 
they are apt to leave to hap and hazard the choice of 
the means by which these states are to be induced. Often 
they ascribe to the means, an importance which in reality 
belongs only to the resultant state — a state which might 
have been brought about by very different means. Hence 
the fetichism often displayed by artists for tobacco, al- 
cohol, narcotics and intoxicants of all kinds, debauchery. 
But the desirable thing is not the alcohol, the tobacco, 
or the debauchery in itself; the real object of their 
quest is the outcropping of the subconscious which at- 
tends the intoxication. Some artists discover this, in- 
stinctively or by chance, and are thus enabled to find 
inspiration without the use of methods that entail phys- 
ical ruin. These are the greatest of their tribe. The 
utilization of natural sleep, after a period of mental 
concentration, is peculiarly fruitful. Victor Hugo was 
well aware of this, and his mode of life in Guernsey has 
become famous. He never wrote a line in the afternoon. 
At this time of day he went for a drive, immersed in 
profound meditation. Hypnotized, as it were, by haunt- 
ing thoughts, the poet would let his mind range amid his 
unfinished visions. Visibly cut off from his surround- 
ings, he would hardly exchange a word with anyone. 
The work thus initiated went on during sleep. At five 
in the morning he was seated at his writing-table, ready 
to record upon paper the poem which was now ready in 
his mind. 

A poet whose days were fully occupied in earning a 



210 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

livelihood by prosaic means (he was a commission agent) 
gave me the following account of his methods of work. 
' ' The idea of a poem comes into my head : I am careful 
to make no attempt to write it for the moment. But 
after six in the evening, when I am back in my own 
room, I isolate myself, I plunge myself into a kind of 
hypnosis, I am emotionally stirred, and the condensation 
of the poetic images begins. I wait another twenty-four 
hours. On the morrow, when I have a moment to my- 
self, I think of my poem — in the street, as I go about 
my business. At six o'clock, when I am once more alone 
in my room, my poem is ready for me, and I write it. ' ' 

As far as opinions are concerned, the role of reflective 
suggestion must be mainly negative. It will be a self- 
control, a door-keeper to the mind, warding off the in- 
trusion of ready-made opinions. It will aim at keeping 
reflection and judgment on the alert. It will try to save 
us from moral contagion, above all during epidemic sea- 
sons, during times when strong collective emotion or 
collective passion favours collective suggestion — as hap- 
pens during revolution and in war-time, when opinions 
are so much influenced by suggestion that entire nations, 
viewed from a detached standpoint, have the aspect of 
gigantic lunatic asylums, so that experts have with good 
reason described a "belligerents' psychosis." 1 The 
worst feature of suggestions of this sort is that, like all 
suggestions, they have a teleology of their own, so that 
the suggested opinion generates in the subject's mind 
excellent reasons for its own justification. Among intel- 
lectuals, these reasons are built up into a system, which 

1 See Jacques Mesnil, Note d'un psychiatre (demain, Geneva, 
1916) ; Auguste Forel, La psychanalyse et la guerre (Le Carmel, 
Geneva, 191 7). 



EXAMPLES AND SPECIAL RULES 211 

has a connected and logical semblance. Like the suffer- 
ers from major hysteria, persons holding such opinions 
lie in perfect good faith. A typical example is furnished 
by the celebrated manifesto of the ninety-three German 
intellectuals, issued in 1914. This and similar instances 
serve to show the extent to which we are all exposed to 
such epidemics, and how essential it is that a preventive 
countersuggestion should stand sentry over our judg- 
ment. In 1796, a period of intense political ferment, 
Goethe wrote: "Merely in order to live, I try to escape 
altogether from the spirit of my time." 

The suggestion of representative states wherein is im- 
plicit the belief in some particular objective reality 
(opinions, judgments, sensations), cannot fail, from the 
point of view of truth, to be positively harmful. As 
already pointed out, if I convince myself by autosugges- 
tion that the earth is square, it is true that I believe it, 
but it is not true that the earth is square. Consequently, 
in this domain, the role of suggestion must chiefly be 
one of countersuggestion, of prevention, of sentry duty. 
Unless, indeed, we are prepared to admit that certain 
opinions, though lacking adequate objective foundation, 
are none the less useful, are necessary to life, and must 
therefore be autosuggested. Fiat vita, per eat Veritas! 
The theory has its interest, but this is not the place for 
its discussion. Speaking generally, it would seem that 
truth is a good thing, and that hallucinations and false 
opinions are undesirable. 1 

In the affective sphere, the role of suggestion must 

1 Cf . Paul Emile Levy : " I suggest to myself that I shall have 
erroneous ideas. The next day I have them, and my mind is 
exclusively filled with them, so that I have to discontinue my 
work." 



x/ 



212 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

likewise in many cases be negative. Thus, in all varieties 
of physical pain, we have to employ it as an anaesthetic. 
We may lay down as a principle that it should always 
be possible in this manner to obtain a result, total or 
partial. Certain very keen or obstinate pains, such as 
toothache * and headache, are among those in which com- 
plete success may be attained in a very brief time. Hav- 
ing achieved relief from pain, we can then continue the 
use of suggestion as a preventive, so that the trouble shall 
not recur either on the morrow or subsequently. 

Hunger is easy to control. If we are compelled to 
fast, we can neutralize the inconveniences of abstinence. 
Not only can we annul the pangs of hunger, but in addi- 
tion we can minimize the accompanying symptoms of ex- 
haustion. Should appetite be capricious, we can regu- 
late it by the use of conditional suggestion, affirming 
that we shall feel hungry whenever we sit down to a 
meal, regardless of any stress of emotion, such as for- 
merly would cause loss of appetite. When mealtimes 
come, our hunger will be irresistible, but we shall never 
be hungry between meals. 

If we bear cold or heat badly, we can suggest to our- 
selves that we shall bear it better in future, and we can 
stress these suggestions as winter or summer draws near. 
We must forbid ourselves to be "afraid" of heat or cold, 
for to be afraid is per se a noxious suggestion. 

With regard to heat and cold, we shall adopt an offen- 
sive and independent attitude; we shall no longer con- 
sider it necessary to safeguard ourselves against them 
by cumbersome paraphernalia. We shall be able to 
wear the same clothing, or nearly the same, all the year 

1 Complete anaesthesia can be secured although the caries per- 
sists. 



EXAMPLES AND SPECIAL RULES 213 

round, and to dress lightly on the whole. This result 
will be secured by degrees, and will confirm us in the 
belief that we are far more independent of external con- 
ditions than we had fancied. The thought is in itself an 
excellent suggestion. 

We shall master fatigue. In the course of hard work 
we shall postpone from hour to hour the onset of weari- 
ness. But we must do this without effort, for otherwise 
we should be heaping up trouble for ourselves, and in 
the end we should not be simply fatigued but utterly 
worn out. "When walking we can turn to account the 
regular rhythm of our footsteps as a lulling influence, 
inducing a slight degree of hypnosis, which will facilitate 
the suggestion of non-fatigue. A workman engaged at 
a noisy machine can even use the rhythm of this machine 
for the same purpose, if the circumstances be such as to 
permit a moment's immobilization of attention. 

We shall easily be able to avoid undesirable emotions, 
such as anger and fear, and also the diminutives of fear 
known as phobias, including bashfulness and stage 
fright. Even when we have suffered from such emotions 
almost ever since we can remember, we shall speedily 
learn how to control them. As previously indicated, the 
sufferer should direct his attention more especially to the 
movements that accompany these emotions. If we have 
been bashful, we shall suggest to ourselves that hence- 
forward we shall be able to look people in the face, to v 
speak without faltering. If we fear the dark, if we are 
afraid of certain animals, we shall forbid ourselves to 
shiver from fright at the encounter, or to make any of 
the other gestures of fear. If, for instance, toads are 
the enemy, we shall go cautiously. We shall begin by 
saying that next time we see a toad we shall not turn 



214 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

away our eyes. On the contrary, we shall look the 
bugbear fearlessly in the face. When this has been suc- 
cessfully achieved, we shall order ourselves on the next 
occasion to make several steps towards the toad ; to lean 
over it ; to examine it closely. Some persons suffer from 
phobia of one of the domesticated animals, dogs, cats, 
or horses. They must set before themselves as the final 
goal of suggestion (a goal they must only attempt to 
reach by easy stages) the acquirement of a fondness for 
the animals which hitherto they could not endure, a 
pleasure in caressing these animals. When they have 
gone thus far — and they must persevere till then — they 
may feel assured that they have made a great step in 
self-control and a great advance in the practice of auto- 
suggestion. 

But if there are undesirable emotions, there are also 
desirable emotions. We know that emotion can favour 
suggestion in one direction just as well as in another. 
While it may be difficult to arouse emotions by reflective 
suggestion, since an emotion must be of spontaneous 
origin, we can at any rate increase our emotional suscep- 
tibility, can increase it as much as we think advisable, 
leaving life to mould out of this plastic material the 
particular emotions which we have not specified in our 
formula of suggestion. We may, however, usefully af- 
firm that whatever emotions we feel shall be desirable 
emotions. 

Suggestion can play its part in regulating the whole 
of our affective life. To a considerable extent, we can 
arouse in our mind certain sentiments, and we can sup- 
press other sentiments. All ethical systems, all religions, 
prescribe such a regulation of the affective life; but in 
so far as, in the attempt to carry out the prescription, 



EXAMPLES AND SPECIAL RULES 215 

we lean on voluntary effort, we are soon convinced of 
our impotence, and we draw the conclusion : ' 1 This can- 
not be done to order." — It can, however, be done to 
order, but through the instrumentality of a mental atti- 
tude which is based upon suggestion and not upon the 
will. It is by calling up the good sentiment that we pave 
the way for its realization; and thereby, at the same 
time, we invite the bad sentiment to yield up its place. 
If, when we wish to expel an undesirable sentiment, we 
confine ourselves to the use of a negative formula, the 
chances are that we shall fail. Veni Creator is, in all 
respects, a far more potent exorcism than Vade retro 
Satanas. We get rid of evil by filling its place with 
good. 

We summon joy to us; we create joy for ourselves. 
Goethe knew this, for he wrote: "We must laugh before 
we become happy; and if joy be not complaisant, we 
must compel her to yield. ' ' In these words, Goethe like- 
wise reveals his realization that the expression of a senti- 
ment calls up this sentiment. It is the counterpart of 
what he wrote on the same topic in Werther. 1 

Is there any need to dwell upon the advantage that 
may be derived from reflective suggestion in the mastery 
of our tastes, our inclinations, and our passions? "It 

*Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, Part I, Chapter V. — Cf. 
Marden, op. cit, p. 141 : " I know of a woman who was prone to 
fits of depression, of the ' blues/ who conquered them by forcing 
herself to sing bright, joyous songs, and to play lively, inspiring 
airs on the piano whenever she felt an 'attack' coming on."— 
Ibid., pp. 144-5: "A physician, who is a 'nerve' specialist, 
advises his patients to try to smile under all circumstances. 
. . . ' Keep on smiling, . . . just try turning up the corners 
of your mouth. See how it makes you feel, regardless of your 
mood.' " 



216 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

is useless to dispute about tastes or about colours*' is a 
common saying. People seem to imagine that tastes, 
whether in food or in other things, are inalterable. But 
we, who have learned the part played in their forma- 
tion by spontaneous suggestion, know that they are noth- 
ing of the kind. There is, in fact, no better discipline in 
reflective suggestion than to acquire control over all our 
tastes; to overcome our repulsions until we have taught 
ourselves to be fond of things which we could not bear 
to look at even in a picture ; to get the better of our little 
weaknesses for this or that coveted dish. We ought to 
find no difficulty in liking everything that is edible ; our 
stomachs would be all the better for it. If we are com- 
pelled to adopt a strict regimen (which will rarely be 
necessary when we know how to turn the forces of sug- 
gestion to good account), we shall learn to like what is 
good for us, and to have no longings for anything that 
will disagree with us. If we have to take a medicine 
with an unpleasant taste, we shall suggest to ourselves 
that the taste is agreeable. (In many cases, this victory 
over ourselves will prove much more profitable to us 
than the actual taking of the medicine.) In such in- 
stances, we can apply the method of special suggestion 
shortly before the food has to be eaten or the medicine to 
be swallowed. When the repulsion proves difficult to 
overcome, we may employ suggestion simultaneously 
with the taking of the dose which we find so offensive. 
We must close our eyes so as not to see it, and to help us 
to attain collection. If what we have to swallow is a 
draught, we shall drink it down to the accompaniment 
of reiterated mental affirmations that it is really quite 
indifferent to us. At a later stage we can teach ourselves 
to like it. We must not try to get on too quickly. 



EXAMPLES AND SPECIAL RULES 217 

Passions which have struck deep root in our being are 
far more difficult to extirpate. I do not mean that sug- 
gestion is incompetent to conquer the greater passions. 
But what must be foreseen is that, after the first success, 
the subject will be apt to regret that his life has been 
narrowed. His passion has bulked so largely in his ex- 
istence that, when its voice has been silenced, he finds 
himself in a disconcerting and distressing void. He is 
loath to take another step forward ; and even if he should 
persist in formulating his suggestion, he does so with the 
secret wish that the suggestion may fail. A safer way 
is to have a better passion to substitute for the one that 
has proved dangerous. Still more advantageous is it to 
sublimate the dangerous passion, to cultivate it while 
transforming it. Such is the course chosen by the im- 
passioned devotees of art, religion, and duty. 

Suggestion is able to overcome the keenest mental pain. 
But here, too, the sufferer who has been relieved is some- 
times inclined to regret the loss of his suffering. He has 
a sense of vacancy. Previously, his suffering was in- 
tense; he longed to be freed from it; he was single- 
hearted in that longing, and he cast no glance backwards. 
But now, after deliverance, he regrets the chains that 
galled him so bitterly, for their very torture made him 
feel alive, saved him from an emptiness which seems like 
non-existence. Perhaps the subject has been mourning 
a lost one. When his grief has been assuaged by sug- 
gestion, he feels that the dead is being robbed of the due 
meed of sorrow. Such a case was seen at the Nancy 
clinic. Of course, this remorse may be another trick of 
the subconscious ; a new torture substituted for the old, 
in order to fill the void, which is the worst torture of 
all. 



218 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

To sum up, suggestion can assuage mental pain. But 
is such assuagement always desirable? Here we enter 
upon a very different question, and it is one which lies 
beyond the scope of the present work. 

To the active and motor sphere belong the suggestions 
that will be most frequently employed. 

We have pointed out the part played by suggestion in 
the formation of habits. One of the leading roles of re- 
flective suggestion is the acquirement of good habits and 
the overcoming of bad habits. For the latter purpose, 
we must once more, as far as possible, use suggestion in 
its positive form, by suggesting a new habit to be sub- 
stituted for the habit we desire to suppress. Let us 
quote Coue: 

"To give you a clear understanding of the way in 
which suggestion acts in the treatment of moral defects, 
I will make a comparison. Let us suppose the brain to 
be a board into which have been driven brads represent- 
ing the ideas, the habits, the instincts, which determine 
our actions. If we perceive that in any individual there 
exists a bad idea, a bad habit, a bad instinct — in a word, 
a bad brad, let us take another brad representing the 
good idea, the good habit, the good instinct ; let us place 
its point directly over the head of the bad brad, and 
strike on it a single blow with a hammer ; in other words, 
let us make a suggestion. The new brad will be driven 
a little way in, a millimetre perhaps, and the old one will 
be driven out for a corresponding distance. At each 
fresh blow of the hammer, at each fresh suggestion that 
is to say, the new brad will enter for an additional milli- 
metre, and the bad one will emerge to the same extent. 
After a certain number of blows, the old brad will have 



EXAMPLES AND SPECIAL RULES 219 

been completely dislodged, and the new one will have 
taken its place. ' ' ' 

If we attack the bad habit with a negative formula, 
suggestion must aim at keeping the attention on the 
alert in case the habit should have become unconscious. 
For example, one who bites his nails can teach himself 
by suggestion to become aware of what he is doing di- 
rectly he raises the fingers to the mouth. Then he can 
stop himself. To be sure of a successful result, he must 
also suggest to himself that the bad habit shall become 
distasteful. 

When we treat a bad habit by induced suggestion, 
we commonly suggest to the subject that he will be 
totally unable to yield to his inclination. A young man 
of eighteen, who had been a nail-biter since early child- 
hood, begged me to cure him by suggestion. I sug- 
gested to him that throughout the day he would be 
positively unable to raise his hand to his mouth. In 
the evening, he wished to pick one of his teeth with his 
finger. He was unable to do so, and had to use the 
point of a pencil. From this day forwards he practised 
autosuggestion; the habit was cured. 

Impotence is not a desirable ideal to set before our- 
selves ; nevertheless, in the cases under consideration our 
suggestions must take this form. We must not say: "I 
shall be able to resist temptation in future.' ' We must 
say: "I shall no longer be tempted. Should I wish to 
regain a taste for my habit, I shall find that I am unable 
to do so." This form of suggestion economizes effort. 

Certain habits are not fully under the control of the 
voluntary muscles ; but the involuntary muscular move- 
ments on which they depend are perfectly amenable to 
*Coue, op. cit., pp. 20, 21. 



220 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

suggestion. This is the case with tics or habit-spasms, 
for instance, and with cough. In such cases we need not 
hesitate to suggest impotence, saying: "My tic will be- 
come less frequent; and soon, even should I wish to 
simulate it, I shall be unable to do so." In the case of 
cough, we should not say : ' ' Henceforward I shall be able 
to check my cough." We should say: "The cough will 
spontaneously subside, and in a little while I shall be 
unable to cough however much I may try to do so; if 
there should be mucus in the passages which requires 
to be expectorated, I shall be able to expectorate it with- 
out provoking a paroxysm of cough." Such complete 
mastery over coughing is in most cases easy to secure, 
even in the advanced stages of consumption. Specialists 
have long since noted that certain consumptives do not 
cough. Since, for tubercular patients, cough is always 
a noxious habit, some doctors forbid their patients to 
cough. This is quite a mistaken prescription, unless the 
patient is provided with the means which will enable 
him to cure his cough, unless he is taught how to practise 
autosuggestion. Voluntary effort not to cough is an 
absurdity. There is a German sanatorium in which a 
Prussian discipline prevails. Here the rules permit the 
patients to cough once or twice a day ; but the consump- 
tives are punished if they cough more frequently. They 
make convulsive efforts to stifle the paroxysms, and 
these efforts are quite as exhausting as the cough. But 
the desired result could easily have been secured by 
autosuggestion. 

When the habitual action is more or less pleasurable, 
we must not be over-sanguine as to an immediate defini- 
tive cure, above all if the habit is of long standing. 
Benoist-Hanappier puts the case very well when he ex- 



EXAMPLES AND SPECIAL RULES 221 

plains that if we expect too much in these cases, we are 
risking a failure ; and that every failure is a suggestion 
of impotence for the future. He writes : 

"Do you crave for a cigarette? Say to yourself, 'I 
shall not light one for half an hour. , And keep your 
word. Do not attempt to go too quickly. Do not begin 
by saying, ' I shall wait two hours. ' You would be very 
likely to give way to temptation before the two hours 
were up. This failure would discourage you, would 
lead you to distrust yourself, would make you lose 
ground. Do not imitate those who, training themselves 
for a long walk, suddenly double their daily distance, 
and overtire themselves. This is to defeat the object of 
training, whose method it is to enable us without fatigue 
to take longer and longer walks. ' ' ' 

We have seen how suggestion can command the events 
which make up our destiny, can command them through 
the instrumentality of the sayings and doings inspired 
by the subconscious. We have learned in what sense it 
is true that our star is within us. 

0. S. Marden writes (op. cit., p. 158) : "Your whole 
thought current must be set in the direction of your life 
purpose. . . . Our mental attitude, our heart's de- 
sire, is our perpetual prayer which nature answers. 
. . . He alone is inferior who admits inferiority, who 
voluntarily accepts a position of inferiority, because he 
thinks himself unlucky. The world belongs to him who 
conquers it. Good things belong to those who make 
them their own by the strength of their desire, by the 
firmness of their will. ' ' 

Our only criticism of the American evangelist's pre- 

1 Benoist-Hanappier, professor at the university of Nancy, En 
marge de Nietzsche, Figuiere, Paris, 1912. 



222 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

cepts is that his use of the words " desire' ' and "will" 
betrays inadequate analysis. We may desire and will, 
but we shall do so vainly if we imagine or fear our- 
selves to be unable. Our imagination and our thought 
must tend in the same direction as our desire and our 
will. Now this depends on ourselves, on the suggestions 
we make to ourselves. 

But it is above all in the treatment of disease that in- 
sufficient appeal has hitherto been made to the power of 
suggestion.. For a considerable period it has been usual 
to employ heterosuggestion to regularize the bodily 
functions, to relieve constipation, to promote sleep, to 
cure amenorrhea, to help digestion, to prevent nervous 
palpitation. This is often supposed to be the last word 
in psychotherapeutics. In some instances, good results 
have even been secured in organic disease. The general 
belief is, however, that, as far as organic disease is con- 
cerned success is quite exceptional. It is thought that 
there are, after all, not many cases for which treatment 
by suggestion is advisable. 

This would be true if we had no resource but hetero- 
suggestion. But autosuggestion, as we have seen, pro- 
duces modifications as profound and lasting as those that 
have hitherto been produced by heterosuggestion. By 
the methodical use of autosuggestion we may hope to 
attain results greatly surpassing the "marvels of hypno- 
tism." This is no mere hypothesis. Or, if it be a hy- 
pothesis, it is one which is daily being verified. The ob- 
served cures have been obtained by the regular practice 
of autosuggestion. It is true that the starting-point 
has been a heterosuggestion made by the practitioner. 
That is why we reserve the description of these cases 
for Part III, which treats of Induced Suggestion. There 



EXAMPLES AND SPECIAL RULES 223 

we shall describe the methods employed in the Nancy 
clinic. But successful results are only secured when 
the subject regularly practises autosuggestion. Induced 
suggestion, as we shall explain, has served merely to 
train the patient in autosuggestion. It is to the influence 
of the latter that success must be ascribed. 

Moreover, there are persons who, having attended a 
single lecture or a course of lectures, having read a well- 
written pamphlet, or having witnessed a sitting, have 
grasped the principle, have put it into practice, and 
thereupon (without being subjected to preliminary 
heterosuggestion) have secured results parallel to those 
we shall describe. 

Everyone can verify the efficacy of the method for 
himself by applying it in minor troubles, thus ascertain- 
ing if he has grasped the correct procedure. You wish 
to stop a haemorrhage, nose-bleeding for instance? If 
this nose-bleeding ordinarily lasts a quarter of an hour, 
with intermissions, you should readily be able to secure 
the formation of a good clot and the arrest of the haemor- 
rhage within two or three minutes. Attain collection, 
and make use of some form of special suggestion. You 
can place a watch in front of you and keep your eyes on 
the second-hand, having fixed a time in your mind when 
the bleeding is to stop. You ought to be successful; 
and if you fail, it will be because your method is still 
faulty, because you have overlooked some detail. In 
like manner, if you are subject to colds in the head which 
usually last a week suggest to yourself that the trouble 
will pass over in four days. At a later stage you can 
forbid the catarrh to develop at all. You can dictate to 
an abscess the moment when it is to burst. Without 
any other treatment than autosuggestion, you can cure 



224 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

pimples, warts, varicose ulcers, eczema. The first results 
will encourage you, and will induce you to apply sugges- 
tion in more and more serious troubles, never allowing 
yourself to be discouraged by a failure. You will say to 
yourself that no one knows the limit to the power of 
suggestion; that suggestion has cured cases supposed to 
be incurable; that it must be tried in positively all cases. 

The regulation of sleep is a most valuable exercise, for 
sleep is exceptionally responsive to suggestion. Since it 
is a relaxation, it can only be hindered, not favoured, 
by any effort to promote it. Sleep is very ready to obey 
suggestion. If we fail to summon sleep at will, there 
must be something wrong with our method. Perhaps 
we are making an effort at the time we formulate our 
suggestion. As soon as we are successful, we may be 
sure that we have done away with effort, and that our 
method is now correct. 

Henceforward we shall be able to go to sleep almost 
instantaneously. We shall accurately prescribe the hour 
of waking. We shall prohibit nightmare. We shall even 
be able to direct the course of our dreams. We shall 
forbid ourselves to be awakened by any noise, however 
violent, unless a real danger threatens. On the other 
hand, we can suggest to ourselves that we shall awaken 
in response to stimuli which ordinarily are insufficient 
to rouse us; that we shall be wakened by the slightest 
cry of a child or by the least sound from a sick person 
(one who need not actually be watched, or rather one 
whom we can watch even when we are asleep) ; that we 
shall be awakened by a dream, by some thought that 
comes during sleep, in response to a question formulated 
overnight. In a word, nothing is more sensitive to sug- 
gestion than sleep. It is precisely for this reason that 



EXAMPLES AND SPECIAL RULES 225 

we have to walk warily. If our method be faulty, we 
shall readily initiate a countersuggestion, and the result 
will be the very reverse of what we desire. If we sug- 
gest to ourselves that we shall sleep soundly and shall 
awaken at a definite time, with the half -acknowledged 
thought that this waking will require a continued effort 
of attention, our sleep is likely to be troubled, and we 
may repeatedly awaken before the time. But if we can 
suppress the half-acknowledged thought, we shall sleep 
soundly and shall awaken at the appointed hour, without 
any fatigue. It is obvious that the regulation of sleep 
is preeminently a matter in which attention to minor 
shades of detail is of the first importance. That is why 
it is such excellent practice to acquire the mastery of 
sleep. When we have done so, we can expect great 
things from ourselves in the way of suggestion. 

For the attainment of the results above described, and 
of others yet more striking, it is not necessary to have 
been subjected to induced suggestion. An intelligent 
person, one able to throw off the routinist scepticism of 
his everyday environment, can do all that is requisite 
alone and unaided. 

A man named Jacquemin, a chemist at Malzeville near 
Nancy, had suffered for a long time from chronic rheu- 
matism. Coue, who did not know him personally, though 
he had treated Jacquemin 's daughter, received from him 
one day the following letter: "I have had a wonderful 
success in the use of your method on myself. I suffered 
from rheumatic pains in the legs, so that it was difficult 
for me to get about. I treated myself by saying several 
times a day, and at night just before going to sleep: 
1 There is nothing the matter with me ; I can walk quite 
well; etc.' I at once began to improve, and in a few 



226 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

days I had completely recovered. I should tell you that 
I was theoretically convinced of the value of autosugges- 
tion, so that this good result did not come to me as a 
surprise." The case is by no means exceptional. I 
have chosen it because the rapidity of the cure is pecul- 
iarly typical; and because the patient's profession is a 
guarantee of his power for accurate observation. 



CHAPTER EIGHT 

AUTOSUGGESTION AND MORAL ENERGY 

From all that we have said concerning the practice of 
reflective suggestion, one essential idea must have 
emerged. It is that autosuggestion must not be con- 
founded, as it is so often confounded, with the will. This 
is not merely a theoretical error, it is a practical error 
as well ; for autosuggestion will not bear its full fruit un- 
less it is formulated with a minimum of effort. Here we 
have the chief discovery of the New Nancy School. 

I do not wish to imply that the earlier manuals of 
autosuggestion, those that have failed to grasp this prin- 
ciple, are for that reason devoid of value. But the most 
fertile pages in such books are those in which the author, 
breaking the rigidity of his erroneous system, resumes 
contact with the reality, even at the risk of self-contra- 
diction. Bonnet, for instance, in his Precis d' autosug- 
gestion volontaire, writes incidentally as follows : 

"If it were not, for certain persons, an invitation to 
laziness, we might advise people to work little and to rest 
a great deal." 

This is but the paradoxical expression of the truth on 
which we have to insist. The work of suggestion goes on 
in the subconscious, and has nothing to do with the 
conscious effort which presides over the will. We may 
say that suggestion is a form of will, but of subconscious 
will. 

Proportionally to its results, this subconscious labour 
seems to induce much less fatigue than the work which 
is the outcome of conscious effort — unless, indeed, in the 

227 



228 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

former case, astonished by the results, we fancy ourselves 
to have been wearied by the stupendous task which 
seems to have been performed. As a general rule, sug- 
gestion appears to fatigue us no more than sleep with its 
dreams fatigues us. Yet sleep with its dreams represents 
a considerable amount of work; but work in which vol- 
untary effort is reduced to a minimum, as in suggestion 
itself. This harmonizes with the teachings of contem- 
porary physiology. 

' ' In reflex contractures, there is no perceptible fatigue. 
In hysterical patients, such contractures may last for an 
indefinite period, without the patient being aware of 
any feeling of fatigue. . . . The cause of fatigue is 
voluntary effort, and not the mere muscular contrac- 
tion." 1 

Our state of mind at the moment when we perform an 
autosuggested action is not a state of volition, not a 
state of tension. The suggested act surges up from the 
depths of our being, whereas the voluntary act emanates 
from the superficial strata of consciousness. The con- 
dition must rather be compared to what Beaunis terms 
"somnambulist vigil/' the state in which a posthyp- 
notic suggestion is carried out. As an exercise in auto- 
suggestion, we may tell ourselves overnight that on the 
morrow, at some specified hour, we must without fail 
perform one or more of those trifling actions which we 
are apt to forget owing to their lack of interest — things 
which people try to remind themselves to do by tying 
a knot in the pocket-handkerchief — the purchase of a box 
of matches, the trying on of some new clothes, and the 
like. We shall really have succeeded in conveying the 

1 Charles Richet, Physiologie des muscles et des nerfs, Paris, 
1882. 



AUTOSUGGESTION AND MORAL ENERGY 229 

desired suggestion if, next day at the appointed hour, 
the idea of the proposed action suddenly comes into the 
mind as if someone had whispered it to us. Still better 
will it be if, when we are out walking, we find ourselves, 
without having consciously willed it, at the door of the 
right shop. 

Autosuggestion, therefore, may be said to be practi- 
cally at the antipodes of the ordinary will. Does this 
imply that it is "an invitation to laziness''; that it 
turns us away from healthy activity; that it slackens 
our energy? Nothing of the kind. 

Abramowsky, head of the laboratory in the Warsaw 
Psychological Institute, has conducted a series of inter- 
esting experiments from which he concludes that the 
energy manifested oy anyone during life is in direct 
ratio with his power for plunging himself into a condi- 
tion of autohypnosis. 1 

In these experiments the subject has, as far as he is 
able, to inhibit the psychogalvanic reflex. His hand is 
so placed that the slightest muscular movement will lead 
to the passage of an electric current and the consequent 
deflection of a galvanometric needle. The stronger the 
movement, the greater the deflection of the needle. A 
sudden noise, such as a gunshot or a shout, or a flash of 
light, will arouse an emotion, and the galvanometer will 
measure the intensity of this emotion. In a first series 
of experiments, the subject is asked to yield to his im- 
pulse. In a second series, he is asked to resist, to control 
his emotion, to inhibit his reflex muscular response. A 
comparison is made between the galvanometric record in 

1 Abramowsky, Etudes experimentales sur la volonte, Journal 
de psychologie normale et pathologique, 1915. 



230 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

the former case and in the latter. In certain subjects, 
the amplitude of the deflection is always considerably 
less when voluntary inhibition has been at work ; and we 
may say that in such persons inhibition has been success- 
ful, that they are really masters of themselves. Abram- 
owsky questions them as to their mental state during the 
experiment, and he finds a general agreement as to the 
replies. The subject isolates himself in the thought of 
the test, in the thought of its successful performance ; he 
makes a mental void round this idea. In a word, he is 
in a state of autohypnosis and concentration. Now, it 
appears that in ordinary life these same persons are 
peculiarly energetic, exceptionally gifted in respect of 
self-mastery. 

In other subjects, on the other hand, in those who dis- 
play a feebler morale in ordinary life, there is no marked 
difference in the amplitude of the galvanometric deflec- 
tion in the two series of experiments. Nay more, it 
sometimes happens that the amplitude of deflection is 
regularly greater in the second series of experiments 
than it was in the first. Some of the subjects, therefore, 
do the very reverse of what they wish. Desiring to in- 
hibit the muscular reaction, they increase it. It seems 
to me that Abramowsky has paid less attention to this 
singular fact than it deserves. The experiments ought 
to be repeated with the special aim of elucidating the 
matter. I am confident that here will be found an ex- 
perimental verification of the law of reversed effort, and 
a way of measuring its effects. What we already know 
of the working of this law justifies the inference that 
those who came badly out of the test must have made a 
great effort to succeed, but must have been full of fear 
that they would fail. 



AUTOSUGGESTION AND MORAL ENERGY 231 

Abramowsky's experiments are of great interest as far 
as they go, for they show that those who can best realize 
autohypnosis (the optimum condition for autosugges- 
tion) are likewise the most energetic. 

Furthermore, the same phenomenon is verified every 
day by persons who practise autosuggestion with intelli- 
gence. 

In this connection, let me quote the autobiographical 
record penned by a young woman at the Fontenay aux 
Roses training college to whom Coue had taught auto- 
suggestion : 

"It is above all in the mental sphere that I have been 
able to note such marvellous results. I am now far less 
subject than of old to lassitude, low spirits, despondency. 
Sometimes these moods return, for one often cherishes 
gloom, though one knows it to be harmful and depress- 
ing. That is why I think it difficult to act upon oneself 
as far as this matter is concerned. A word from another 
has far more effect, and is practically indispensable. 

"Turning to a different subject, I can without fatigue 
do twice as much work as before. During the vacation 
I have been able to get through two quite extensive tasks, 
such as a year ago I should never have attempted. This 
year I systematized my work, and said : ' I can do it all ; 
what I am undertaking is materially possible, and must 
therefore be morally possible ; consequently I ought not 
to experience, and shall not experience, discouragement, 
hesitancy, annoyance, or slackness.' 

"Having thus persuaded myself, I found myself in 
the condition ordinarily described in the books as the 
outcome of suggestion, the condition in which a stronger 
will acts upon a weaker. 

"Nothing could stop me, nothing could prevent my 



232 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

doing what I had planned to do ; you might almost have 
said that things were done by themselves, without the 
slightest effort on my part. If, through some accident, 
I was unable to get to work until a few minutes past the 
appointed time, I felt a discomfort which did not pass off 
until I could begin the allotted task. I am still quite 
astonished at myself. When I return to college, I shall 
be able to resume my studies there to the greatest pos- 
sible advantage.' ' 

A few weeks later, she wrote again : 

' ' I cannot postpone writing to you once more. I feel 
that I must let you know how deeply I am indebted to 
you. During the holidays you initiated me into the 
practice of your invaluable method. When I left you to 
come here, and to finish my studies, my rebellious mem- 
ory was a trifle improved. But above all you had re- 
stored my self-confidence. You had set me free ! 

1 ' I have an indomitable will, and I have hitherto suc- 
ceeded in whatever I have undertaken, but at the cost 
of how much mental tension ! I have just delivered two 
lectures, and much of their success is owing to you. 
When preparing them, I was able to retain a calmness of 
mind which was practically unknown to me in similar 
circumstances before. You have set me free in relation 
to myself, and you have thus enabled me to realize my 
life better, to make it what I wish it to be. I used often 
to say to myself: 'What is the use of this scholastic life, 
when compared with real life with its difficulties and its 
serious problems? Why should one bother one's head 
with all this bookish stuff?' And yet, I could not help 
worrying. Naturally, I worried the more, the more I 
tried not to. 

" You have set me free because, despite my best efforts 



AUTOSUGGESTION AND MORAL ENERGY 233 

(or rather, because of my efforts), I did not know how 
to live in the present. I was continually endeavouring 
to look ahead, to strain my will that I might foresee diffi- 
culties and go out to meet them. ,1 could never think of 
those I love without dreading that they might be taken 
from me prematurely, and might die any day. I was 
intensely distressed at the inadequacy of my attempts to 
help those with whom I lived in close association. But 
you have given me the wisdom I lacked ; or, at least, have 
shown me how to acquire it by degrees. I feel that I am 
more fully mistress of myself. Above all, I have been 
able to instil into two of my companions the wisdom that 
is so essential to a useful and harmonious existence. As 
for my memory, it remains untrustworthy, and rebel- 
lious at times. But I suffer less and less in this way, and 
I can be patient. 

"Doubtless you have treated and cured cases just as 
serious as mine. But persons whose heart is in their 
work find pleasure even in small results. The least 
thought that they have been helpful to others entitles 
them to noble and pure-minded gratification. That is 
why I venture to trespass on your valuable time in order 
to express my feeling of all that I owe to you. 

"P. S. — There are few Mondays and Fridays when I 
fail to recall your long days of devotion. You can 
hardly believe how greatly I am comforted and strength- 
ened by your example. ' ' * 

Here are some additional instances: 
At Neuf chateau, Vosges, I had occasion to teach auto- 
suggestion to two sisters, one sixteen years of age, the 

fetters published in the Bulletin Ecole de Nancy, 1913 and 
1914. 



234 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

other seven. They continued to practise the method 
after I had gone away, and recently I received the fol- 
lowing letter from their mother: 

"She [the elder girl] wanted to get her certificate of 
competence in English. I thought that the happenings 
of the moment 1 would weaken her resolve, or would at 
least induce her to postpone its execution. Nothing of 
the sort. We were informed that there was practically 
no risk in the sea passage, and she preferred to go now, 
rather than wait for a few months before attaining the 
desired end. Her courage and energy have been a great 
comfort to me. This is the opposite of what should have 
been, for she was the consoler. . . . 

"As for Titite [the younger sister], on Sunday we 
were out walking with some friends. She was careless 
enough to tear her hands rather badly on a barbed wire 
fence. Both of them were streaming with blood. She 
ran back to us laughing — not a tear, not a cry. The 
wounds were serious enough to need a dressing which 
was kept on for a whole week. ' ' 

These examples, especially the latter, where the sub- 
ject was a little girl of only seven, show that the practice 
of autosuggestion, far from reducing energy, is capable 
of raising it to an unprecedented extent. Let me add 
that in the cases just recorded no special suggestion of 
energy had been formulated. The energy made its ap- 
pearance as a natural outcome, not preconceived, not 
experimentally manufactured, of the actual practice of 
autosuggestion. 

1 The reference is to the war, and to the risks of crossing the 
Channel. The letter dates from the end of 1915. 



PART THREE 
INDUCED SUGGESTION 



CHAPTER ONE 

AUTONOMY OF THE SUBJECT 

Bernheim has said: "There is no hypnotism, there is 
only suggestion." Coue would require very little per- 
suasion to induce him to say: "There is no suggestion, 
there is only autosuggestion." The significance of this 
would be that even when the personality of a suggester 
may appear to substitute itself for the personality of the 
subject, the latter is still in reality the chief factor. The 
suggestion remains intra-individual. 

The cases to which allusion is made in the above para- 
graph are, as the reader will doubtless have realized for 
himself, those of profound hypnosis or induced sleep. 

Even in this condition, the dependence of the subject 
on the hypnotizer is more apparent than real. Auguste 
Forel insists again and again on the large share in the 
phenomena which must be ascribed to the personality of 
the subject. 1 For, in the first place, the fact that, of all 
sick persons, the insane are those in whom suggestion is 
least successful, suffices, in Forel 's opinion, to prove that 
the core of the phenomenon remains in the mind of the 
hypnotized subject. Moreover, he shows how the sub- 
ject completes the suggestions made to him, completes 
them with the aid of elements borrowed from his own 
personality. From this outlook, Forel considers that 
suggested hallucinations furnish a decisive example. In 

1 Op. cit. 
237 



238 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

fact, if to a subject in the somnambulist state we propose 
a negative hallucination (that is to say, if we suggest to 
him that he is unable to see a real object), there ensues a 
hiatus in his visual field, and he invariably fills in this 
hiatus in some way, with the aid of a positive autosug- 
gested hallucination. In like manner, we cannot induce 
a positive hallucination without this involving for the 
subject the production of a negative autosuggested hallu- 
cination indispensable to the occurrence of the positive 
hallucination. Forel explains this as follows : * ' We can- 
not see a gap in the visual field without filling it in with 
something, be it only with a black background. Con- 
versely, we cannot be affected with a positive hallucina- 
tion unless a portion of the visual field is covered with 
the hallucinatory object. If the appropriate portion of 
the real background be not absolutely blocked out by the 
hallucinatory object, it is at least rendered hazy, as hap- 
pens in the case of transparent hallucinations. The 
same thing occurs in the case of many hallucinations of 
hearing and of tactile sensation. . . . One who, 
when lying in bed, has the hallucination that he is lying 
on a pincushion, can no longer feel the soft mattress.' ' 

In this domain of hallucinations (always the one which 
seems most impressive to the onlookers), simple experi- 
ments can be devised to prove that in ultimate analysis 
we have to do solely with autosuggestions. The follow- 
ing is Coue's favourite experiment for this purpose. He 
suggests, for instance, to the subject an apparition 
clothed in white, seen on the right-hand window pane. 
As he makes this suggestion, he thinks of the upper pane 
on the right side. The subject will see the apparition on 
one of the right-hand panes, but it will in most cases be 
on the lower pane, the one through which we usually look 



AUTONOMY OF THE SUBJECT 239 

out. If the suggester, though he has said ''right-hand 
pane," has wrapped tnis up in a number of details so 
that the right-handedness may readily be overlooked, it 
is quite likely that the subject will see the apparition 
upon a left-hand pane. As for the aspect of the appari- 
tion, each subject will describe this according to his own 
fancy. The experiment may be varied in countless 
ways. It proves beyond dispute that what is realized is 
not the thought of the hypnotizer. The subject has 
heard the latter 's words, and has interpreted them as 
would a person in the waking state. A mental image 
has been called up by these words, and it is this image 
which transforms itself into a suggestion. He sees what 
he has thought, not what the hypnotizer has willed. 
There is no question of the conduction, as by invisible 
wires, of the operator's thought into the subject's brain. 1 
If we may say so, the subject's own thought is conducted 
by the subject's own nervous system. 

As a general rule it is agreed that induced sleep "in- 
creases suggestibility," this signifying that in the hyp- 
notized state the subject obeys the operator's orders 
better than he would obey them in the waking state ; that 
suggestions proposed by the operator, whatever these 
suggestions may be, have more chance of being realized 
than if they were proposed to the subject in the waking 
state. But nothing is more liable to variation. Every 
practitioner has come across subjects who are less obedi- 
ent in induced sleep than they are in the waking state. 
Those even who are most docile in the hypnotic state, 
none the less quite unexpectedly impose a plea of excep- 

*The question of telepathy involves very different considera- 
tions. This problem is not raised by the ordinary manifestations 
of hypnotism. 



240 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

tion to certain suggestions. These facts, ostensibly con- 
tradictory, are perfectly explicable on a theory of auto- 
suggestion. Indeed, on such a theory, it is the contrary 
which would surprise us. The operator 's suggestion can 
be realized solely on condition that it is accepted by the 
subject's mind and transformed into an autosuggestion. 
Now what does this acceptation involve? The ques- 
tion is far from simple. We may say that the accepta- 
tion is not a conscious and deliberate act of will. It 
would be better to compare the subject's mind to a soil 
which may be sometimes suitable and sometimes unsuit- 
able for the implanting of the seed of suggestion sown by 
the operator. In most instances, the soil has been pre- 
pared by an earlier spontaneous autosuggestion. If the 
subject allows himself to be hypnotized with the precon- 
ceived idea that, though he will go to sleep, the operator 
will be able to do nothing with him, the probable result 
will be (since, by a law with which we are perfectly 
familiar, this idea dominates his mind throughout the 
induced sleep) that the suggestions proposed to him will 
fail to take effect. Especially will this failure ensue 
when the subject is extremely suggestible, for then the 
idea which was in his mind when he was hypnotized will 
infallibly dominate him. On the other hand, it has 
often been noted that those who were absolute sceptics 
before they were hypnotized, those who did not even be- 
lieve in the reality of the hypnotic sleep, are sometimes 
exceptionally docile in the hands of the hypnotizer. We 
might even contend that when it has proved possible to 
hypnotize a sceptic, this sceptic will then be an excellent 
subject. The very fact of feeling sleep take possession 
of him has abruptly refuted his scepticism. He has been 
alarmed at finding his freewill escaping him — above all 



AUTONOMY OF THE SUBJECT 241 

if there has been a wager, and if his vanity is also at 
stake. It would seem that from the first onset of the 
symptoms of hypnosis (indistinctness of vision, sense of 
weight in the eyelids), such persons are seized with 
alarm. This emotion hastens the onset of sleep, and all 
the more when the subject makes adverse voluntary 
efforts, for these efforts are promptly reversed. Those 
who fancy beforehand, without always acknowledging it 
to themselves, that they will become mere puppets of 
which the hypnotizer will pull the strings, those who 
tremble at the thought of what they will become, are 
very likely to become what they dread. Such, it would 
seem, are the only cases in which this puppetdom actu- 
ally arises. It is not a phenomenon of hypnotism, but of 
autosuggestion. It is not a characteristic of profound 
hypnosis. 

When a subject who is customarily docile opposes a 
plea of exception to some particular suggestion, we must 
not attempt to explain this refusal as a deliberate exer- 
cise of will. The question is always one of the soil on 
which the seed has fallen. We shall find, on close ex- 
amination, that the suggestion has involved some infrac- 
tion of the subject's deeply-rooted tendencies, that it 
conflicts with his character, with his inveterate habits. 
If, for instance, we propose some bad action to a good 
man, conveying it in the form of a posthypnotic sugges- 
tion, at the appointed time the idea of performing this 
action will come into his mind, but he will probably have 
no difficulty in rejecting the prompting, just as he 
habitually represses other bad ideas that arise in his 
mind from time to time. 

Speaking generally, indifferent suggestions, and those 
which the subject knows to be useful to him, are ac- 



242 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

cepted; repugnant suggestions are spontaneously re- 
jected. This seems to be the rule. 

We must add that a very important element in this 
connection is the affective relationship between the sub- 
ject and the operator. The subject will more readily 
accept suggestions from a person whom he loves, or from 
one in whom he has perfect confidence. Fear, like fond- 
ness, may lead to results; but these results commonly 
lack uniformity and are apt to be unstable. 

In any case it is undesirable that the subject should 
become a puppet in the hands of the operator, or should 
imagine that he must become a puppet. Those who wit- 
ness certain hypnotic seances (real or simulated) cannot 
fail to be struck with the precision with which certain 
suggestions are carried out, and the idea of the subject's 
absolute dependence then germinates in the mind. Or a 
person may have listened to an account of the "marvels 
of hypnotism," may have read newspaper articles or 
trivial stories in which the hypnotist has been repre- 
sented as all-powerful. If such a person subsequently 
allows himself to be hypnotized, he may exhibit a state 
of absolute dependence; but the dependence is an auto- 
suggestion, the outcome of a superstition about hyp- 
notism. 

The question is often mooted, "Can persons be con- 
strained by hypnotism to the performance of a bad 
action V 9 From what has been said above, it will be 
obvious that in the writer's opinion the correct answer 
is, "Yes, if the subject imagines this to be possible.' ' It 
is, therefore, of considerable importance that the super- 
stition should be destroyed. Books that point out the 
dangers of hypnotism are far more dangerous than hyp- 
notism itself, 



AUTONOMY OF THE SUBJECT 243 

For us, heterosuggestion, even during induced sleep, 
is still an autosuggestion. But we must not be inter- 
preted as implying that this autosuggestion is an act of 
will on the subject's part. By now the reader will know 
enough about autosuggestion to realize that the imagina- 
tion from which it arises is as far as possible removed 
from the will. 

If autosuggestion be the only force at work even in 
induced suggestion, there follows a practical consequence 
of the utmost importance. Induced suggestion must not 
be performed by the operator for its own sake ; he must 
regard it as the education of the subject's power of auto- 
suggestion. For though the practitioner may secure bril- 
liant or strange results by heterosuggestion, we find, 
whenever we probe the matter to the bottom, that he has 
done nothing more than liberate the subject's autosug- 
gestions. If, however, the practitioner does not give the 
subject the key to autosuggestion, the latter will believe 
that the former's influence is the cause of everything, 
and the results will be apt to prove extremely fugitive. 
When left to himself, the subject will find that these 
results tend gradually to disappear. This happens all 
the more when, during the induced sleep, strange phe- 
nomena have occurred. In reality the phenomena of 
heterosuggestion are less remarkable than many spon- 
taneous autosuggestions, but the subject ignores these 
latter. On the other hand, the hypnotic phenomena which 
he has seen produced in others and which he knows 
to have been produced in himself, reveal the laws of 
suggestion by isolating them in a way which cannot fail 
to strike the imagination. In like manner, electricity 
is now everywhere at work, and is taken as a matter of 



244 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

course; but the first time a child is shown electrical ex- 
periments in the physical laboratory he feels that he is 
witnessing marvels. Our subject, then, believes that 
the hypnotizer is endowed with wonderful powers. To 
these powers he attributes the result, and imagines that 
in the absence of the cause (the hypnotizer) there can 
be no effect. This partly explains why profound 
hypnosis, in which suggestibility is apparently increased, 
has less marked and less lasting results than spontaneous 
suggestion. 

There are additional reasons for dispensing as far as 
possible with the use of induced sleep as a general method 
of treatment. When we attempt to hypnotize a new 
patient, we rarely find that profound hypnosis, the 
genuine induced sleep with amnesia after waking, can be 
brought about on the first occasion. In many subjects, it 
is never perfectly attained during the whole course of 
treatment. 1 As a rule, we shall bring about slight or 
medium hypnosis (somnolence, hypotaxia) ; and when 
this has passed off the subject will remember everything 
that has been said and done. More or less consciously, 
he will then be apt to reason as follows : ' ' The doctor was 
not able to put me to sleep ; but he wanted to send me to 
sleep in order that he might cure me; therefore he will 
not be able to cure me." This autosuggestion becomes 
firmly fixed in the patient's mind, and partly or wholly 

*I have seen a number of Bernheim's old patients. Most of 
them said : " I never went to sleep at all " ; or, " I was still wide 
awake in the hypnotic sleep " ; or, " I slept without sleeping " ; or, 
" I am not sure if I was really asleep " ; or, " To please him, I 
told him I had been asleep." — As regards the last phrase, we 
know that this is generally an illusion on the part of the sub- 
ject ; but its existence shows that the sleep, though real, * as not 
very profound. 



AUTONOMY OF THE SUBJECT 245 

neutralizes the good effects of the treatment. Perhaps 
the practitioner will take the precaution of telling the 
patient that profound sleep is not necessary. But if, 
none the less, the practitioner makes use of methods 
which aim at inducing as profound a sleep as possible, 
if he sends all his patients to sleep in so far as he is able 
to do so, the subject will be likely to say to himself that 
somnolence is a mere makeshift, that profound hypnosis 
is what really counts, and that in its absence the results 
will be unsatisfactory. 

On the other hand, when profound hypnosis ensues, 
the subject has no remembrance of the condition; and 
when we tell him to make autosuggestions through in- 
ducing an analogous condition for himself, the advice is 
a dead letter. Profound hypnosis, therefore, is not our 
ideal, when our aim is to educate autosuggestion. 

These considerations, the fruit of clinical experience, 
and confirmed by time, have led Coue to abandon pro- 
found hypnosis as part of a general curative system. 
His method is now wholly based upon slight hypnosis, so 
slight that it can hardly be distinguished from the wak- 
ing state. In the great majority of instances the method 
gives better results than one wholly based upon pro- 
found hypnosis. If, in exceptional cases, the induction 
of profound hypnosis seems indicated, it should not be 
exclusively employed, but should be alternated with 
slight hypnosis, for in the latter condition we can educate 
autosuggestion by making suggestions to the subject in 
the waking state. 

This evolution of the method, which has culminated 
in the abandonment of profound hypnosis for all but 
exceptional cases, must not be identified with a parallel 
development realized by Dubois and Dejerine. Accord- 



246 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

ing to these authors, hypnotism must be abandoned. 
Suggestion is to be replaced by " persuasion." The 
reader might suppose the distinction to be purely verbal, 
but there is more at stake. Dubois 1 and Dejerine 8 
claim to address persuasion to the subject's will and 
intelligence, to his superficial consciousness. Suggestion, 
in their view, is dangerous, because it addresses itself to 
the subconscious, because it tends to be " an education 
in automatism." What their movement has in common 
with the New Nancy School is that it proposes to render 
the subject both master and author of his own better- 
ment, to make him more independent of the practitioner. 
In this aim we are at one with Dubois and Dejerine. 
But the means they would employ for its attainment 
shows that their psychology is at fault. We are con- 
trolled by the subconscious. The fact is proved by the 
phenomena of spontaneous suggestion. It is impossible 
for us, in our turn, to exercise any control over the 
activities of the subconscious unless we enter into rela- 
tions with it. Coue's autosuggestion is a means for 
opening up relationships of this kind; Dubois' and 
Dejerine 's persuasion is not. In earlier pages I referred 
to the well-known powerlessness of reason and will in 
the struggle against passion. "Persuasion" can make 
its way no further than into the superficial strata of the 
mind. It does not bore deep enough to tap the subsoil 
waters, and yet its advocates claim that it can provide 
us with refreshing draughts. It is undeniable that 
Dubois and Dejerine have secured excellent results in 

1 Dubois, Les psychonevroses et leur traitement, Masson, Paris, 
1904. 

2 Dejerine, Les manifestations fonctionelles des psychonevroses. 
I^eur traitement par la psychotherapie, Masson, Paris, 191 1. 



AUTONOMY OF THE SUBJECT 247 

actual practice; but their successes doubtless depend 
upon their personality, their sincerity, their devotion, 
which have awakened confidence in their patients and 
have initiated beneficial autosuggestions in the minds of 
these. Here, the intelligence plays no more than a 
secondary part. As for the will, the appeal to this 
faculty, as we have shown, is a disastrous error. Finally, 
the method of " persuasion/ ' even in the view of its 
founders, has a very limited field of application when 
compared with the method of autosuggestion as perfected 
by the New Nancy School. 



CHAPTER TWO 

PRELIMINARY EXERCISES 

The first step in the subject's autosuggestive education 
is to show him, by simple experiments, how readily an 
idea can realize itself, provided that it exclusively occu- 
pies the mind. The subject will first see these experi- 
ments performed by others. In the next stage he will 
do them himself, and thus, from being mere experiments, 
they will become exercises. 

The series of elementary exercises which I now consider 
most valuable, so that I have come to make a methodical 
use of them whereas at first I regarded them as no more 
than supplementary illustrations, are carried out with 
the aid of ClfievreuVs pendulum. 

These experiments with Chevreul's pendulum occupy, 
in the theory of autosuggestion, the place occupied in 
electrical theory by the electrical pendulum — the ball 
of pith suspended by a silk thread. It is merely requisite 
to explain to the pupil that the more complex and more 
important phenomena of autosuggestion are no more than 
applications of the principle deducible from the working 
of ChevreuPs pendulum. 1 This will enable him to grasp 
the whole bearing of the principle in question. 

*M. E. Chevreul, op. cit. — In 1830 this distinguished chemist 
became director of the Natural History Museum in Paris. Born 
1786, died 1889. Perhaps the only man of world-wide fame 
whose centenary has been celebrated during his lifetime. — 
Translators' Note. 

248 



PRELIMINARY EXERCISES 249 

Chevreul, it will be remembered, had had his interest 
awakened by the "exploratory pendulum" used in his 
day by clairvoyants and in drawing-room seances. This 
pendulum, held in the medium's hand, consisted of a 
ring suspended by a hair. The ring hung down into 
a 'tumbler or wineglass, and answered questions put 
to the medium by tapping against the side of the glass, 
once or oftener as the case demanded. Chevreul satisiied 
himself that the person holding the pendulum was un- 
aware of imparting any movement to it, and he asked 
himself whether the idea or simple image of a movement 
would not suffice to bring about this movement. A 
theory was current that the oscillations of the pendulum 
were ampler when the ring was suspended over mercury. 
Chevreul had little difficulty in proving that the mercury 
had no influence whatever. He demonstrated that the 
subject's thought (not his will) was the sole cause of the 
oscillations. This thought acted through the intermedia- 
tion of imperceptible movements, which were involuntary 
and unconscious (subconscious). 

Starting from Chevreul 's classical experiments, I have 
devised the following exercises, and every one of my new 
pupils has to perform them. 

Materials. In the middle of a sheet of white paper 
draw a circle, 0. Draw a line AB passing through the 
centre of 0. Draw another line CD, perpendicular to 
AB, likewise passing through the centre of 0. These 
must stand out very distinctly on the white surface. 
Place the sheet on the ground or on the table in front of 
the subject, so that the line AB runs from left to right 
across his field of vision, while the line CD runs from 
near to far. Give the subject the pendulum, which re- 
sembles a miniature fishing rod and line, the pendant be- 



250 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

ing a small, heavy, and preferably shining body. The 
rod and the line should each be about eight inches in 
length. An ordinary pencil will serve for the rod. The 
bob of the pendulum should weigh about as much as a 
new shilling piece. The pupil takes the rod in his hand, 
and is asked to hold himself upright, but not to press 
the elbow nervously against the side. It would be a 
mistake for him to assume a position which would hinder 
his freedom of movement. The bob of the pendulum will 
be set in motion, not by any mysterious currents, but 
by the pupil's own movements, real though impercepti- 
ble. These movements must take place quite inde- 
pendently of his will. He must be unaware of them 
or rather, must become aware of them only after they 
have taken place, so that he regards them objectively, 
as spectator and not as actor. 

First Exercise. The pupil is requested to hold the 
pendulum in such a way that the bright bob occludes the 
centre of the circle. The pendant will not be vertically 
above the centre, but somewhere on the straight line 
between the centre and the pupil's eye. To get the cor- 
rect position, the pupil may close one eye. He is now 
asked to let his mind dwell on the line AB, following it 
mentally from one end to the other. He is not to make 
any attempt to swing the pendulum, but is on the con- 
trary to aim at keeping it motionless. We add that 
there is no difficulty in "thinking well" about the line. 
It must be done without effort. Enough, we say, to look 
at the line without losing sight of the bob. In these 
conditions, we inform him, the pendulum will begin to 
swing in the direction AB, so that the bob will pass to 
and fro along this line. It may be well at the same time 
to sketch out somewhere in the pupil's visual field, with 



PRELIMINARY EXERCISES 251 

the finger, with a ruler, or with another pendulum, on a 
line parallel with AB, a to-and-fro movement which will 
help to call up in his mind the idea of the expected 
movement of the pendulum he holds. (This is an ac- 
cessory, often useful in the early stages, but needless 
when the experiment has become familiar.) In these 
circumstances, after a few seconds, or after a few minutes 
at the outside, the pendulum begins to swing. The 
amplitude of the oscillations rapidly increases, so much 
so that some persons feel that the devil must be at work, 
and drop the bewitched pendulum as if it burned their 
fingers. But of course this alarm is rare. The very 
reason why I select the experiment for the initiation 
into autosuggestion is that it does not seem overwhelm- 
ingly marvellous, and is none the less surprising enough 
to arouse in the pupil an emotional state extremely 
favourable to suggestion. Children, in especial, do not 
take fright. They are astonished at first, then amused, 
and they seldom fail to make a pendulum of their own, so 
that they can renew the exercise for themselves. This, 
indeed, is an additional advantage of the experiment. 
Everyone can easily reproduce it at his own time and 
pleasure, thus convincing himself that the master's will 
has nothing to do with the causation of the phenomena, 
and that they are really the outcome of autosuggestion. 

/There is yet another good point about this exercise. 
The shining bob and its regular oscillations tend imper- 
ceptibly to induce a slight degree of hypnosis, and this 
favours suggestion. Spontaneously, therefore, the pupil 
has learned what is the condition into which he must 
pass if he is to make effective suggestions to himself. 

Finally, when the experiment above described has 
been perfectly successful, we can easily convince the 



252 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

pupil, by drawing his attention to the matter, that the 
more he tries to keep the bob at rest the more ample are 
its oscillations. This will reveal to him the law of 
reversed effort. 

Second Exercise. The foregoing exercise may now be 
varied so as to show the pupil how accurately thought 
transforms itself into visible reality. 

While the pendulum is swinging vigorously to and fro 
along the line AB, we ask the pupil to transfer his 
thought to the line CD, telling him that the pendulum 
will spontaneously vary the direction of its swing. If 
this result be slow in coming, it will be because the sub- 
ject is hampered by the visual obsession of the movement 
AB. In that case it will be necessary to put the pen- 
dulum at rest. But in most instances this will be 
superfluous, and the change in the direction of movement 
will take place without any difficulty. 

How does the change occur? Sometimes, the oscilla- 
tions AB grow less and less extensive, the pendulum 
becomes motionless, and a moment later the swing in the 
new direction begins. In other instances, the oscillation 
AB becomes rounded into an ellipse, with its foci lying 
over the line CD; gradually this ellipse grows longer 
and narrower, and is ere long reduced to a line coincident 
with CD. In yet other cases, the bob continues to swing 
in a single plane, but the line representing that plane 
rotates gradually on the centre of the circle until the 
line of swing has moved from AB to CD. 

If, however, we ask the pupil how it is that a change 
has ensued in the direction of the oscillation, he is usually 
unable to answer. His awareness of what has been 
going on in his mind has been minimal. This fact enables 
us to reveal to an intelligent pupil the law of subcon- 



PRELIMINARY EXERCISES 253 

scious teleology. He has thought the end, and nothing 
but the end, and his subconscious has devoted its inge- 
nuity to the finding of means (any means will serve) for 
the attainment of that end. ^We add: "All healing, all 
improvement, depends upon the production of movements 
in one part of the body or another, but it is needless for 
you to know what these movements are in order that you 
may bring them about. You need merely think of the 
end, the cure. You have just learned that your sub- 
conscious is a clever physicist. He is just as good a 
physiologist, and he will find the mean for the fulfilment 
of the end of which you think he will find them without 
your knowing anything about the matter. ' '/- x 

Third Exercise. Ask the subject to think of the circle, 
and the movement will become circular. The change 
may take place by way of motionlessness or by way of an 
elliptical swing. In a sense this exercise is intermediate 
between the two foregoing, and we may therefore trans- 
pose No. 2 and No. 3. But in passing directly from 
AB to CD we get a more obvious demonstration of the 
law of subconscious teleology, for here there is more 
variety in the choice of means. 

Whereas in the linear oscillations there are two points 
of rest alternating with the motion of the swing, the cir- 
cular movement is continuous. It may therefore acquire 
such speed and amplitude that the thread rises nearly to 
a horizontal plane. When the experiment has reached 
this stage, the pupil is quite able to isolate himself in a 
thought. In that case, instead of drawing his attention 
post factum to the law of reversed effort, we may demon- 
strate this law by a special exercise, as follows : 

Fourth Exercise. Without stopping the movement of 
the pendulum, we ask the subject to think: "I cannot 



254 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

stop it. ' ' At the same time lie is to make efforts to stop 
it. It will then become apparent that such efforts serve 
only to increase the activity of the movement, which may 
become so rapid that the bob ceases to be visible. But 
directly the pupil discontinues these efforts and lets his 
thoughts dwell on immobility, the movement grows slower 
and its amplitude diminishes. 

Fifth Exercise. The pupil still holds the pendulum by 
the handle. In front of him we place an upright placard 
on which are drawn several letters of the alphabet, 
ranged along a single horizontal line. The shining bob 
must be at the level of the letters, and at such a distance 
that it can strike them in its swing. We begin by asking 
the subject to think of the fore-and-aft direction. As 
soon as movement in this direction has been established, 
we tell him to think of a letter. Without the handle hav- 
ing been displaced in any way, the pendulum changes its 
plane of oscillation in order to touch the letter thought 
of. When facility in this exercise has been gained, the 
placard may have the entire alphabet written on it, still 
in a single line, and therefore rather small. The pupil 
must now mentally spell a word, and thereupon each 
letter as he thinks of it is successively touched by the bob. 

One of the most interesting features in this series of 
experiments is the precision displayed by the subcon- 
scious. It often, in this respect, shows greater skill than 
is seen in the subject's voluntary movements. We take 
the opportunity of explaining to the pupil that what he 
has just witnessed and realized is not an exceptional ex- 
perience, but the manifestation of a general law. We give 
him typical and concrete instances of spontaneous sug- 
gestion, emphasizing at the same time the law of reversed 



PRELIMINARY EXERCISES 255 

effort. These explanations must be adapted to his in- 
tellectual attainments. 

In suitable circumstances, the experiments with Chev- 
reul's pendulum may be supplemented by a demonstra- 
tion of the well-known phenomena of cumberlandism. 
The pupil is asked to hide some object. He then holds 
your hand — you, of course, not knowing the hiding- 
place. He is to concentrate his mind on the thought of 
this hiding-place. Thereupon, thinking of a direction, 
he unconsciously impresses on his whole frame, and 
upon his hand in particular, movements in that direction. 
You have merely to allow yourself to be guided by these 
movements in order, in due course, to be able to put your 
fingers on the hidden object. 1 

Obviously the experiment must be explained to the 
pupil, if it is to bear fruit in his mind. He must not be 
allowed to suppose, after the manner of those who wit- 
ness such feats at fairs or in drawing-rooms, that the 
discovery of the hidden object is effected by thought- 
transference. What we have to show him is that as soon 
as we think sufficiently hard of a movement, our whole 
body begins to make this movement. 

This may serve as an introduction to some account of 
the way in which our sayings and doings continually re- 
veal what is going on in our subconscious, and to a 
demonstration that our mental attitude is in the end 
supreme over events and over what are termed chance 
happenings. 

A good exercise, less new in principle than those with 

1 This experiment is certain to be successful with persons who 
have had good results with Chevreul's pendulum, and have thus 
shown themselves extremely sensitive to the ideoreflex force. 



256 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

Chevreul's pendulum, but well fitted to succeed them, 
is that of falling backwards and forwards. 

You ask the pupil to stand upright, the body as stiff 
as a poker, the feet in close apposition (toes as well as 
heels), but the ankles being kept flexible, like a well- 
oiled hinge. Tell him that he is, in fact, to stand like a 
plank jointed to the floor by hinges, but balanced in an 
upright position. Point out to him that if such a plank 
be pulled very gently either forwards or backwards, 
after it has moved a fraction of an inch it will fall as a 
rigid mass, unresistingly, forwards if it has been pulled 
forwards, and backwards if it has been pulled back- 
wards. Tell him you are now going to draw him back 
by the shoulders, and that he is to allow himself to fall 
backwards into your arms, unresistingly, turning on his 
ankles as if they were hinges, while his feet remain 
motionless as if nailed to the ground. 

As soon as he has carried out these orders successfully, 
you go on to inform him that in the state of unstable 
equilibrium in which he is now placed, the material 
impulsion which you communicated to him when you 
drew his body backwards may perfectly well be replaced 
by the impulsion of a thought. The pupil will merely 
have to think, "I am falling backwards. I am falling 
backwards," without meditating in the least as to the 
consequences of the fall, and he will actually feel himself 
falling into your arms. 1 

^his is advised by Coue as a preliminary experiment. But 
of late he has dispensed with it, and has contented himself with 
the experiments to be subsequently described. He finds that the 
subject is in most cases sufficiently prepared by the emotional 
atmosphere of the collective sittings — and by the preliminary 
suggestion exercised by the practitioner's reputation. 



PRELIMINARY EXERCISES 257 

To bring this experiment to a successful issue, the 
experimenter will find it well, as a rule, to sketch out a 
movement which will help to impress on the pupil's mind 
the idea, "I am falling backwards/ ' just as in the 
practice with Chevreul's pendulum it was well for the 
instructor to move his finger in the direction indicated by 
his words. The procedure, then, is as follows. Having 
requested the pupil to hold his head erect and to close his 
eyes, you will apply your right fist to the back of his 
neck and your left hand to his forehead. Saying to him 
several times, "You are falling backwards,'' or, "Think, 
'I am falling backwards/ " you gently draw the left 
hand backwards over the pupil's temple, without exercis- 
ing the slightest pressure, and at the same time you 
slowly but continuously withdraw the right fist. 

These manipulations are superfluous in the case of 
persons who are exceptionally sensitive or who have 
already had considerable practice in the exercise. 

The experiment is likewise practised in the inverse 
way. The pupil, still in the same attitude of unstable 
equilibrium, is asked to think, " I am falling forwards," 
and he actually does begin to fall forwards. This time, 
since you are facing the pupil, you can tell him to keep 
his eyes fixed on yours, while you reciprocate. In this 
manner you will induce a moderate degree of hypnosis, 
which will be an aid to suggestion. 

Another experiment, more striking, which will succeed 
at the first trial with everyone who has proved very 
sensitive in the foregoing experiments, is that of the 
chair. 

The pupil stands upright behind a chair. He places 
his hands horizontally on the upper edge of the back, 
with his thumbs strongly applied to the posterior surface 



258 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

of the back. He then concentrates his thoughts on the 
idea : ' ' The chair is rearing up on its hind legs, the chair 
is pushing me, the chair is rising. ' ' At the same time he 
stares hard at the back, between his thumbs, and presses 
with the thumbs strongly as if to resist the attempted 
movement of the chair. But the stronger his resistance, 
the more rapidly does the chair rear on its hind legs, 
sometimes with such force that I have seen the subject 
actually thrown backwards to the ground. (It is a wise 
precaution, therefore,' to stand behind him.) 

What has happened? Dwelling on the idea that the 
chair is going to rear, the subject has unconsciously, with 
the palms of his hands as fulcrums, and in opposition to 
his conscious efforts with the thumbs, performed all the 
muscular movements requisite to make the chair rise on 
its hind legs. 

This last exercise will only succeed, as a rule, in per- 
sons who have had a certain amount of training. More- 
over, there are some subjects who find a difficulty in 
grasping the state of mind it implies. But the earlier 
exercises, those with ChevreuPs pendulum, and the fall- 
ing backwards and forwards, are easily performed by 
everyone. 

The pupil should be asked to reproduce them unaided, 
not merely for practice, but also that he may convince 
himself that the active force is really that of autosug- 
gestion. The exercise with the pendulum is a good one 
to repeat before making suggestions to oneself. It may 
be classed among " exercises in concentration. ' ' More- 
over, it is excellent for persons who have never witnessed 
a sitting, and who wish unaided to train themselves in 
reflective suggestion. 



CHAPTER THREE 

coue's practice 

From the exercises above described, or from some of 
them, the pupil may pass to experiments in contracture 
and inhibition, such as are more familiar to the practi- 
tioners of classical hypnotism. At the present time, 
Coue begins and ends with these. In the conditions 
under which he operates, they seem to him sufficient. 
We shall now, therefore, describe the working of Coue's 
clinic. 

It will be well to use his own words in most instances. 
He describes in the following terms the principle of the 
experiments in contracture and inhibition : 

"Request the subject to clasp his hands and to do so 
as firmly as possible, until slight tremor ensues. Look 
fixedly into the subject's eyes, as in the last experiment. 1 
Place your hands on his, with a gentle pressure, as if you 
were going to press more strongly. Tell him to think he 
is unable to unclasp the fingers, that you are going to 
count up to three, and that when you say ' three' he must 
endeavour to separate his hands, thinking all the while, 
* I cannot, I cannot, etc., ' and that he will find it impos- 
sible to do so. Then count, ' one, two, three, ' very slowly, 
and immediately add, spacing out the syllables, 'You 
can not, you can not, etc.' If the subject lets his mind 

1 Falling forwards. 
259 



260 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

dwell adequately on the thought, 'I cannot,' not merely 
will he be unable to unclasp the hands, but they will 
grasp one another the more firmly the greater the efforts 
he makes to separate them. In fact, he will arrive at 
a result the exact opposite of that which he wishes to 
attain. After a few seconds say to him, 'Now think, 
"I can," ' and his fingers will become unclasped. 

"Keep your gaze continually fixed on the root of the 
subject's nose, and do not permit him to turn his eyes 
away from yours for a moment. 

"If the experimenter finds that the subject can un- 
clasp the hands, the experimenter must not think that 
this is his own fault; it is the subject's fault. The sub- 
ject has not thought well 'I can not.' Tell him so in 
confident tones, and repeat the experiment. 

"Always use a tone of command, the accents of one 
who will not tolerate disobedience. I do not mean that 
the voice should be raised. On the contrary, it is better 
to speak in your ordinary diapason; but you should 
space out the syllables in a dry and imperative manner. 

"When this experiment has been successful, success 
will readily be obtained in all the others, provided the 
experimenter conforms strictly to the instructions given 
above. 

"Some subjects are extremely sensitive, and those of 
this type can be readily recognized from the ease with 
which contracture of their fingers and of their limbs can 
be induced. After two or three thoroughly successful 
experiments, it is no longer necessary to say to them, 
'Think this, think that.' It suffices to say in the com- 
manding tone employed by every good suggester: 
'Clench your fist; now you can't unclench it'; or, 'Close 
your eyes; now you can't open them.' Thereupon, try 



COUP'S PRACTICE 261 

as lie may, the subject will be unable to unclench his fist, 
will be unable to open his eyes. A few seconds later say, 
'You can,' and the contracture instantly passes off. 

"These experiments can be varied as much as you 
please. Here are some of the variations: the subject 
places his hands in apposition, and you suggest to him 
that they have stuck together; he lays his hand on the 
table and is told that it has adhered to the surface ; you 
tell him that he is glued to his chair and cannot rise ; you 
make him stand up and then tell him he is unable to 
walk; you show him a penholder lying on the table, tell 
him it weighs two hundredweight, and that it is there- 
fore too heavy for him to lift ; and so on. 

"I cannot insist too often upon the fact that in all 
these experiments the phenomena are not due to sugges- 
tion properly so called. They are the outcome of the 
autosuggestion which, in the subject's mind, ensues upon 
the practitioner's suggestion." ' 

Such experiments, as we have said, are familiar to 
everyone who practises hypnotism. But it is necessary 
to insist upon the original features they exhibit as per- 
formed in Coue's practice. 

1. In the first place they are put before the pupil as 
exercises in autosuggestion, and not as experiments in 
suggestion. The practitioner begins more or less as fol- 
lows: "You have come here in search of someone who 
can cure you. You are on the wrong track. I have 
never cured anyone. I merely teach people to cure 
themselves. I have taught many persons to cure them- 
selves, and that is what I am going to teach you. The 
experiments in which you are about to participate will 

^mile Coue, De la suggestion et de ses applications, Barbier, 
Nancy, 1915, pp. 13 and 14. 



262 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

always succeed, even if they should seem to fail. For I 
have never claimed that my thought can realize itself in 
you. My claim has always been that each person's own 
thought realizes itself in himself. If, therefore, at the 
moment when I ask you to think, 'I cannot unclasp my 
hands/ you think, on the contrary, 'I can/ you will in- 
evitably be able to unclasp them. You may imagine that 
you have convicted me of error, but in reality you will 
have proved the soundness of the principle of autosug- 
gestion. ' ' 

Apart from the educative value of this method of pro- 
cedure, it has an immediate practical advantage. If an 
experiment fails, the pupil attributes the failure to his 
own unskilfulness, and not to the practitioner's impo- 
tence. Consequently, he does not lose confidence in the 
latter. 

2. These considerations serve partly to explain the 
second characteristic whereby Coue's practice is differ- 
entiated. I refer to the fact that in his clinic the ex- 
periments in contracture are carried out when the sub- 
ject is in the waking state (or, if you will, in a condition 
of very slight hypnosis) , and that they nevertheless are 
almost invariably successful, if not at the first attempt, 
at least after a few trials. Moreover, as has already 
been hinted, for an explanation of this astounding facil- 
ity, we must take into account certain causes foreign to 
the actual procedure. These causes will now be enumer- 
ated. 

The Nancy sittings are collective. On the average 
about thirty persons are present at each. While a sit- 
ting is in progress, a great many patients are waiting 
their turn in the garden or in an adjoining room, each 
with a numbered ticket allotted to him on arrival. 



COUP'S PRACTICE 263 

Everyone knows the reputation of the clinic. To the 
simple-minded it is a place where Coue works miracles. 
For the first time in the history of mankind, a genuinely 
scientific practitioner is the object of a collective faith 
analogous to that inspired in earlier days by certain 
mystics and charlatans. The public on which Coue acts 
by suggestion is a public on which suggestion has al- 
ready been at work. It is not surprising that, with such 
a public, he has no need to employ preliminary exercises. 

Furthermore, the sitting itself is methodically utilized 
to superadd the force of example to the force of this pre- 
liminary suggestion based on reputation. The new- 
comers sit among persons who have already attended 
numerous sittings, and who make no secret of their 
progress towards health. From sitting to sitting, each 
patient can see how the others improve, can see how 
paralytics walk, how the deaf hear. Besides, the exer- 
cises are repeated by the old patients under the eyes of 
the new; and not until then do the new patients make 
trial for themselves. In these conditions, in such an at- 
mosphere, it is natural that experiments in the produc- 
tion of contracture should almost invariably succeed 
after Coue has looked the patient in the eyes for a few 
seconds. We can understand why he has found it pos- 
sible to discontinue the preliminary exercise of falling 
backwards or forwards. 

In my own view, exercises in contracture should not 
be invariably prescribed as preliminary exercises. It is 
from necessity rather than on account of their intrinsic 
value that Coue has chosen them for this purpose. They 
can be realized more speedily than others, and speed is 
of the first importance to one who has to convey sugges- 
tions to a hundred persons or more daily. 



264 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

Nevertheless, as preliminary exercises, these exercises 
in contracture are not free from drawbacks. Although 
they are rendered more acceptable to the pupil by the 
idea that their essential cause is autosuggestion, none the 
less there remains in his mind the feeling that a sugges- 
tion of impotence has been conveyed, that in greater or 
less degree there has been an attempt to limit his free- 
will. To many persons this is distasteful. Even when 
the experiment succeeds, their vanity sets repression to 
work, and they persuade themselves that there was little 
success or none. To a large extent this conviction is 
illusory, like the familiar belief, on the part of the sub- 
ject who has been completely hypnotized, that he did not 
really go to sleep. But the illusion suffices to neutralize 
the good effects of the experiment. Were it not that the 
pupil's confidence is reanimated by the contagion of ex- 
ample, by the sight of the cures worked upon others, it is 
probable that the results would be unsatisfactory. 

That is why I consider it preferable, as a matter of 
principle, to begin with exercises which give the subject 
the feeling that he is increasing his own powers, rather 
than with those which suggest impotence. Then there 
will be no unavowed thoughts. Particularly valuable in 
this respect are the exercises with Chevreul 's pendulum, 
where the subject is amazed and delighted to find that, 
by his thought, he gives movement, and, so to say, life, 
to an inert object. 1 

1 Children who perform this experiment have the feeling that 
the bob of the pendulum is alive. That is why they find the 
experiment so fascinating. A little Russian boy said to me: "I 
speak to my bob ; I say to it, ' Go to the right, turn in a circle, 
stop.' And I speak to it in Russian, for it understands Russian 
better than French," 



COUP'S PRACTICE 265 

On the other hand, we are so much accustomed to do 
whatever we like with our hands, that experiments tend- 
ing to produce contracture of the hands are apt at first 
to seem incredible. For this reason, they may fail. 
Even if they succeed, we are very ready to think we have 
deceived ourselves. But when some apparatus with 
which we are entirely unfamiliar, such as Chevreul 's pen- 
dulum, is put into our hands, we are unprejudiced, and 
are quite willing to expect novelties from its use. 

I must not be understood to imply that Coue 's methods^ 
as above described, ought to be abandoned. Their very 
inconveniences have, as obverse, advantages which are 
no less real. Their incredibility, once the pupil has rec- 
ognized that these marvels actually happen, serves but 
to heighten conviction and to impress the imagination. 
As for the suggestion of powerlessness, it is an excellent 
means for throwing into relief the law of reversed effort. 
This is why Coue, for whom this law is the chief guiding 
principle, prefers the methods he has chosen. 

Whatever may be the rights of the matter, I opine that 
in ordinary practice it will be better to begin with other 
exercises. These will very likely suffice. Experiments 
in contracture may be reserved for especially sensitive 
subjects, in whom they are certain to succeed. For the 
rest, we should assure our pupils that all the exercises 
have the same educative value, and that it matters little 
which particular group is chosen for practice. 

Having made these reservations, I will return to the 
exposition of Coue's methods, and will once more allow 
him to speak for himself. 

"When the subject has passed through the foregoing 
experiments, he is ripe for curative suggestions.' His 



266 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

mind is tilled soil, in which the seed can germinate and 
grow to maturity. Before, it was uncultivated ground, 
where the seed would have perished from drought. 

"Whatever the patient's trouble may be, whether 
bodily or mental, the same procedure is applicable, and 
the same formulas are employed, with trifling individual 
variations. 

"You say to the subject: 'Sit down and close your 
eyes. I shall not attempt to put you to sleep, for it is 
needless. I ask you to close your eyes for the simple 
reason that I do not wish your attention to be distracted 
by the objects within your field of vision. Now say to 
yourself earnestly that all the words I am going to utter 
will fix themselves in your mind, will be graven there, 
that they must always remain fixed and graven there, 
permanently impressed, so that, without any exercise of 
will, without your knowing anything about the matter, 
quite unconsciously on your part, your organism and 
yourself will have to obey them. I tell you first of all 
that every day, three times a day, morning, noon, and 
evening, at mealtimes, you will be hungry, that is to say, 
you will experience that pleasant sensation which makes 
us think and say, "Oh how I should like something to 
eat!" You will, in fact, eat with great satisfaction, but 
you will never overeat yourself. You will eat enough, 
neither too much nor too little, and you will know that 
you have eaten enough when something says within you, 
"You have eaten enough." Then you will stop, for you 
must eat no more. In these conditions, having eaten 
with appetite, and having eaten no more than you should, 
you will digest well, that is to say, you will have no dis- 
comfort whatever, either in the stomach or in the bowel, 
no uneasiness or pain of any kind. Assimilation will be 



COUP'S PRACTICE 267 

perfectly performed, and your organism will make the 
best possible use of the food to form blood, muscle, 
strength, energy — in a word, to create life. 

" 'Since you have digested well, the excretory func- 
tions will be well performed. Every morning, on rising, 
you will feel a desire to go to stool. Without the use of 
laxative medicines, and without recourse to any other 
artificial means, you will have normal and satisfactory 
evacuations. 

" 'Every night, as soon as you wish, you will go to 
sleep, and you will go on sleeping until the time at 
which you wish to wake next morning. You will sleep 
calmly, soundly, quietly. You will have no nightmare. 
When you wake up you will always feel well, cheerful, 
thoroughly fit. 

" 'If you have sometimes been melancholy, gloomy, 
out of sorts, filled with forebodings, henceforward you 
will be free from such troubles. Instead of being moody, 
bored, unhappy, anxious, you will be cheerful, thor- 
oughly cheerful, happy with no good reason for it per- 
haps, but then in the past you may often have been un- 
happy with no good reason for it. Nay more, even if 
you have serious cause for unhappiness, for melancholy, 
you will have no such feelings. 

" 'If, at times, you have been impatient or angry, you 
will no longer be anything of the kind. On the contrary, 
you will always be patient, and henceforward the hap- 
penings which used to irritate you will leave you per- 
fectly unmoved. 

" 'If you have occasionally been haunted by evil and 
unwholesome ideas, by fears or by phobias, I assure you 
that these ideas, these fears, these phobias, will gradually 
cease to trouble your imagination; they will seem to 



268 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

melt away, to pass into a distant cloud where everything 
vanishes. 

" 'I add that all your organs work perfectly. Your 
heart beats normally and the circulation goes on as it 
should. The lungs act well. The stomach, the intestine, 
the liver, the gall-bladder, the kidneys, the urinary blad- 
der — all do their duty. If any one of the organs named 
is actually out of order, the disturbance will lessen day 
by day, so that within a brief period it will have entirely 
disappeared, and the normal function will have been 
restored. 

" 'If, in any organ, some structural lesion should 
exist, this physical disorder will rapidly be relieved, and 
a complete cure will speedily ensue. ' (I should mention 
that we can cure an affected organ without knowing that 
it is actually out of order. Under the influence of the 
autosuggestion, 'the affected organ will be restored to 
health, ' the unconscious, which knows what organ is in- 
volved, will do all that is required.) 

"To these general suggestions, which may seem per- 
haps a trifle tedious, and which to some may even appear 
childish, but which are indispensable, must be added 
those which apply to the special case of the individual 
subject you are treating. 

"All these suggestions must be made in monotonous 
and soothing accents, with due stress on the more essen- 
tial words. Your tone should invite the subject, if not 
actually to fall asleep, at least to grow somewhat torpid, 
so that his mind becomes a blank. 

"When the list of suggestions is finished, you address 
the subject as follows: 'To sum up, I mean that in all 
respects, alike physically and mentally, you will hence- 
forward enjoy excellent health, better health than you 



COUP'S PRACTICE 269 

have hitherto enjoyed. Now I am going to count up to 
three. At the word, * 'three," you will pass out of the 
condition in which you now are, will pass out of it quite 
quietly. "When you do so, you will wake up thoroughly ; 
you will not feel drowsy or tired ; on the contrary, you 
will feel strong, alert, fit, full of life and vigour ; further- 
more, you will feel bright and cheerful, will feel well in 
every respect. "One, two, three." ' 

"At the word 'three,' the subject opens his eyes, 
smiles, and has an expression of contentment and well- 
being. 

"Sometimes, though this rarely happens, he is cured 
on the spot. More often, he is better, his pain or his 
distress of mind has wholly or partly disappeared, but 
only for a season. 

"In any case, the suggestions must be renewed from 
time to time. The requisite frequency varies in different 
subjects. Always, as improvement is more marked, the 
intervals between the sittings can be extended, until the 
time arrives when the treatment can be completely dis- 
continued — this of course being when cure has taken 
place. 

"Before dismissing the patient, tell him that he carries 
within him the means of cure; that you yourself are 
merely an instructor, who can teach him how to use this 
means ; and that he must aid you in your task. 

"Every morning, therefore, before rising, and every 
evening as soon as he has gone to bed, he is to close his 
eyes and to imagine himself in your presence. Then he 
must repeat fifteen or twenty times the phrase : 'Day by 
day, in all respects, I get better and better.' As he does 
this he must mentally underline 'in all respects/ since 
this includes every kind of trouble, mental as well as 



270 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

bodily. Such general suggestion is more potent than 
particular suggestions. 

1 * From what has been said it is easy to grasp the role 
of the suggester. He is not a master who issues orders ; 
he is a friend; he is a guide who conducts the patient, 
step by step, along the road to health. 

" Since all the suggestions are made in the patient's 
interest, his unconscious asks no better than permission 
to assimilate them and to transform them into autosug- 
gestions. When this has been done, cure follows more or 
less rapidly." 1 

At collective sittings, the general suggestions, which 
are the same for all the patients, are formulated once 
only. When the time has come for individual sugges- 
tions, the practitioner goes up to each patient in turn, 
touches him, and speaks to him of the topics with which 
he is specially concerned. Veiled terminology can be 
employed in relation to any matter to which open allu- 
sion might be indiscreet. While these individual sug- 
gestions are in progress, the patients who are not at the 
moment engaging the practitioner's attention remain 
motionless, with eyes closed and muscles relaxed. The 
monotonous tone of the operator is intended to exercise 
a soothing influence, and does in fact lull the patients. 
This is the only hypnotizing factor, and it proves suffi- 
cient, without arousing alarm in anyone. The hypnosis 
thereby induced, commonly the slightest degree of hyp- 
nosis, is just as natural as that brought about by a 
cradle-song, or that due to the rustling of branches in 
the breeze which lulls you to sleep as you lie beneath a 
tree. We are at the very antipodes of the barbarous 
methods of the Salpetriere school. 

1 Coue, op. tit, pp. 14-17. 



CHAPTER FOUR 

CONCRETE RESULTS 

(Suggestion and Psychoanalysis) 

Liebault and Bernheim declared that they succeeded in 
conveying effective suggestions to at least 90% of their 
subjects. Vogt and Forel speak of successes with 97%. 
Coue claims to have exceeded the latter percentage by 
a few tenths. He considers, in fact, that only two classes 
of persons are permanently rebellious to the exercises, 
and consequently refractory to the method. In his own 
words, these classes are composed of: 

"1. Persons whose mental development is so back- 
ward that they cannot understand what you say to them. 

"2. Persons whose level of intellectual culture is 
high, but who are so fickle-minded that they are inca- 
pable of consciously devoting their attention to a single 
idea for the space of a few seconds. ' ' * 

He adds that these two classes, taken together, "rep- 
resent barely 3% of the population." 2 

Let me add that, in my own view, persons in the second 
class ought not to be abandoned without a trial. More- 
over, as I have shown, certain persons are rebellious to 
contracture experiments for reasons very different from 
inconstancy of mind. In any ease, by the use of the 
pendulum experiments we can unquestionably increase 
the proportion of persons found amenable. Provision- 
ally I feel entitled to speak of about 98% of the popula- 
tion as susceptible. Future experience will enable us to 
obtain more precise statistics. 

*Op. cit., p. ii. Op. cit., p. 17. 

271 



272 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

If by the new methods we can secure but little increase 
in the proportion of persons amenable to suggestion 
(and, indeed, above 97% there is not much scope for in- 
crease), it might none the less seem that we could hope 
to secure a considerable increase in the proportion of 
cases amenable to suggestive treatment. Unfortunately 
a "case" is a less definite entity than a person, and per- 
centages here would be artificial. But this much can be 
asserted. The method expounded in the present work 
has secured incontestable results in cases alleged to be 
incurable, in patients given up by practitioners employ- 
ing only the conventional methods of treatment. The 
statement conflicts with received ideas, but we must bow 
before the facts. There are, of course, systematists who 
persist in denying facts in the name of principle — as if 
a principle were anything more than a formula synthe- 
tizing a certain number of known facts; as if a prin- 
ciple could refuse to grant new facts the right to contra- 
dict it. Those who will deny a fact in the name of a 
principle are like a child which, having seen lions only 
in cages, denies a priori that lions can exist free. As 
Arago said, he is a rash man who pronounces the word 
"impossible" anywhere outside the sphere of pure 
mathematics. 

Let us dismiss theory for the nonce, and let us examine 
the facts. These facts have been observed under con- 
ditions which give guarantees for all desirable accuracy 
of observation. 

In the psychonervous domain, the methods of the New 
Nancy School have given remarkable results in cases 
where ordinary psychotherapy had failed. Here are 
two striking instances: 



CONCRETE RESULTS 273 

1. Y., of Nancy, neurasthenic for some years past, 
suffers from phobias, from terrors. The gastric and 
intestinal functions are badly performed. He does not 
sleep well. He is gloomy, and is troubled with thoughts 
of suicide. He sways like a drunken man when he walks. 
His mind dwells unceasingly on his symptoms. Treat- 
ment has hitherto proved unavailing, and he continually 
groics worse. A month at a special institution did him 
no good whatever. The patient consulted Coue in the 
beginning of October, 1910. The preliminary experi- 
ments were fairly easy. The practitioner explained the 
autosuggestive method, the existence of the unconscious, 
etc. Suggestion. For two or three days Y. found these 
explanations rather difficult to follow. Then the light 
broke in upon him. "I understand," he said. — Sugges- 
tion, followed by daily autosuggestion. Improvement 
was slow at first, but soon became more speedy. A com- 
plete cure was effected in six weeks. 1 

2. R. de B. has suffered from neurasthenia for more 
than twenty years. Has consulted celebrated specialists 
in Nancy (Bernheim), Paris, Strasburg, Berne (Du- 
bois) , etc. Has paid long visits to some of these special- 
ists, but the results have always been negative. Came 
to consult Coue in July, 1915. Improvement followed 
the very first visit. After each consultation a further 
advance could be noted, and at the end of three months 
the patient declared himself "well, and indeed very 
well ' '—the bombardment of the city notwithstanding. 2 

The cure of neurasthenia is often unexpectedly rapid. 
Let me give another of Coue *s cases, which is typical : 
A lady came to consult him. Her sister had suffered 

1 Op. tit, p. 24. 

2 Unpublished. — Privately reported to Baudouin by Coue. 



274 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

from neurasthenia complicated with various functional 
troubles, and had been cured by the Nancy method. The 
new patient likewise suffered from neurasthenia, in an 
extremely aggravated form. She spent quite half her 
time in bed, utterly unable to get about or to do any 
work. She had a bad appetite, poor digestion, low 
spirits. — Cure followed a single, sitting. — The case was 
followed up for two years, during which time there was 
no relapse. 

It is impossible to find room for cases of all functional 
and organic diseases. The reader must be content with 
a record of instances where the results have been excep- 
tionally striking or peculiarly novel. 

I 

In the study of spontaneous suggestion, special men- 
tion was made of the action of the mother's brain upon 
the foetus, of the action of the mind on the mechanisms 
of pregnancy, childbirth, etc. — Induced suggestion has 
been proved to exercise a notable influence upon the 
female pelvic organs. 

Coue has repeatedly found that, on the average, his 
method will cure severe metritis in six weeks. Here are 
some examples: 

1. Woman suffering from metritis and salpingitis. 
Considerable relief was noted after the first sitting. 
Complete cure in five weeks, confirmed by the patient's 
regular medical attendant. (1915.) 

2. Woman aged 30, metritis of six years' duration. 
Her doctor considered operation indispensable. Dread- 
ing this, the patient wished to try suggestion as a last 
resort. Cure was instantaneous, the success being doubt* 



CONCRETE RESULTS 275 

less due in large measure to the emotional state arising 
from the fear of operation. Kept under observation 
for six months, during which there was no relapse. 
(1915.) 

3. Woman aged 28, metritis and salpingitis of long 
standing (several years). Same result. (1915.) 

4. Woman aged 60 ; metritis for the last twenty-four 
years; grows steadily worse. Operation thought indis- 
pensable. Complete cure in six weeks from suggestive 
treatment. Confirmed by the surgeon who had been 
going to operate. (1915. J 1 

These examples of recent date have been chosen be- 
cause of their striking characteristics. Earlier instances, 
which it is needless to record, show that the cures are 
lasting. 

The New Nancy School has to its credit several cases 
in which typical fibromata have completely disappeared 
under treatment. This phenomenon does not differ in 
essence from the disappearance of a wart. As Coue has 
well said, the process is explicable in the same way as 
is the arrest of haemorrhage by suggestion. We must 
assume in both cases that the vasoconstrictor system is at 
work. The difference lies in the duration of the sug- 
gestive action, and in the magnitude of the result. 

II 

We have likewise seen spontaneous suggestion at work 
in the cure of tuberculosis, and we have examined some 
of the statistics Louis Renon has published, statistics 
which clearly prove the reality of this action. Since, 

1 Cases i and 4 were published in the Bulletin Eeole de Nancy 
for the year 1915. Cases 2 and 3 were privately communicated. 



276 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

however, in the Nancy cases, autosuggestion is systemat- 
ically employed, we need not be surprised to find that 
Coue's results are yet more remarkable than those re- 
corded by Renon. (Supra, pp. 114 et seq.) 
Some of his cases tend to revolutionize our views. 

1. Woman of thirty, in the third stage of pulmonary 
consumption. Increasing emaciation, notwithstanding 
hyperalimentation. Cough, shortness of breath, expec- 
toration ; seems to have only a few months to live. Pre- 
liminary experiments indicate great sensitiveness. Sug- 
gestion, immediate improvement. From the next day, a 
decline in the morbid symptoms begins. Improvement 
continues from day to day ; the weight increases rapidly, 
though hyperalimentation has been discontinued. After 
a few months the cure seems complete. — This patient 
lived at Troyes. In May, 1910, Coue finally left Troyes 
for Nancy. On January 1, 1911, Madame D. wrote him 
a letter of thanks, informing him that she was pregnant, 
and was in splendid health. — A later report showed that 
there had been no relapse. 1 

2. A lad of fifteen has a swelling of tubercular origin 
on the right arm. It is four inches long, two inches 
wide, and one inch in thickness. Completely cured at 
Nancy in four months. 2 

3. I was able to observe a similar case in Geneva. A 
little girl aged 11, suffering from tuberculosis, was 
brought to me at the Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute in 
November, 1915. On the temple was a tubercular ulcer, 
the size of a florin. It dated from four months back, and 
had obstinately refused to heal under treatment. The 
child proved sensitive and confiding. Suggestion. 
Autosuggestion carried out by the patient conscien- 

a Coue, op. cit, p. 23. 2 Privately communicated. 



CONCRETE RESULTS 277 

tiously every morning and every evening. Great was 
my astonishment, and equally great was the astonish- 
ment of my pupils, when the girl returned a week later 
with the ulcer already cicatrized. The epithelium cover- 
ing the surface was still diaphanous, and pink in colour. 
A few weeks later the appearance was almost normal. 
Within a month from the date of the first suggestion the 
cough had completely disappeared, although the time 
was the middle of winter. Next month a slight bron- 
chitis supervened, and was cured without difficulty. 
Appetite had become normal; sleep was uninterrupted, 
lasting from eleven to twelve hours. Rabinovitch, who 
has kept this case under observation, tells me that the 
improvement has continued, although the patient (whose 
family is in humble circumstances) lives in a damp 
ground-floor tenement and in hygienic conditions other- 
wise unfavourable. 

4. In view of the results above recorded, it will not 
surprise the reader to learn that two cases of Pott's dis- 
ease (tubercular curvature of the spine) have been bene- 
fited by treatment at Nancy. 

Ill 

Having dwelt on two classes of cases, uterine inflam- 
mation and tubercular disease respectively, let us now 
consider certain isolated examples which show how va- 
rious are the disorders to which the method is applicable. 
The first case is quoted from Coue (op. cit., p. 23). 

1. A. G., of Troyes, has for a long time suffered from 
an intractable enteritis. Mental condition bad. The 
patient is low-spirited, gloomy, and unsociable. He is 
much troubled with ideas of suicide. 

Preliminary experiments easy; followed by sugges- 



278 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

tion, the results of which were appreciable from the very 
first day. Suggestion practised for three months, daily 
at first, and subsequently at increasing intervals. At 
the end of this time the cure was complete, the enteritis 
having entirely disappeared, and the mental condition 
being all that could be desired. The cure dates from five 
years ago, and there has never been the slightest tend- 
ency to relapse. The patient is a conspicuous example 
of what can be done by suggestion, or rather by autosug- 
gestion. The suggestions bore upon the mental condi- 
tion as well as upon the physical, and both kinds were 
accepted with equal facility. Thus he acquired increas- 
ing self-confidence. Being an excellent workman, and 
wishing to earn more money, he wanted to have a hosiery 
frame in his own house, so that he might work at home 
for an employer. After a while, a manufacturer who 
had seen him at work, entrusted him with the frame he 
coveted. G. was so skilful that he was able to turn out 
far more from his frame than other workmen were able 
to produce. Delighted with this result, the manufac- 
turer entrusted him with another frame, and then with a 
third. Now G., who would have remained an ordinary 
workman but for suggestion, is the master of six frames, 
which bring him in quite a considerable income. 

Within a few years; (as I prophesied to him three years 
ago) G. will have become one of the leading manufac- 
turers of Troyes. 

2. A woman of Nancy had suffered for three years 
from an intractable eczema of the hands. Cure was 
effected by suggestion in a few sittings. (1914.) 1 

3. Jacqueline G., aged 7, of Neuf chateau (Vosges), 
where I was living in 1915, was brought to me by her 

bulletin Ecole de Nancy, 1914. 



CONCRETE RESULTS 279 

mother on the advice of an elder brother who had been 
cured of stammering by autosuggestion. 

The child had suffered from typhoid when 14 months 
old. Since then she had been totally deaf, and she 
was able to produce nothing but inarticulate sounds, 
comprehensible only to her habitual associates. The 
medical opinion was that there was no hope of cure, and 
it was proposed to send her to a special institution for 
the training of deaf-mutes. An idea of the intensity of 
the deafness may be derived from a picturesque phrase 
of her own, "I hear the piano with my feet," meaning 
that she could feel the tactile vibrations transmitted 
through the floor from the instrument, but could not 
hear any sound. Intelligent, full of vitality, and very 
sensitive to suggestion. 

After six weeks' treatment, during which she had sit- 
tings twice a week, she was able to utter all the sounds 
of the alphabet. The only consonants she had any seri- 
ous difficulty with were eh, j, s, and z. She learned sev- 
eral new words every day, fixing them in her memory by 
writing them down. She could sing, with the words, an 
air which had been sung before her with a pianoforte 
accompaniment. 

It is well to point out that the child religiously formu- 
lated her daily autosuggestion. For this purpose she 
buried her head beneath the bedclothes, and would allow 
nothing and nobody to distract her attention. 

4. B., sometime clerk of the civil court in Nancy. 
Has suffered for twenty-five years from an affection of 
the frontal sinuses; has had eleven operations, which 
have failed to cure. Physical condition deplorable; 
mental state even worse. Cannot read for ten minutes 
a day, is fatigued by the slightest movement, suffers 



280 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

from insomnia, has severe and almost constant pain in 
the head, is incurably low-spirited. This patient came 
to consult Coue on the recommendation of R. de B. (see 
above, p. 273). The first four sittings seemed to have 
no effect. During the fifth sitting improvement was ob- 
vious, and became more conspicuous sitting after sitting. 
After three months the patient said to Coue : " I passed 
such a day yesterday as I have not known for years. 1 
was entirely free from headache; I took a long walk 
without feeling the least bit tired; I was able to read 
without difficulty for four hours.' ' He was cured. 
There was no relapse. (1915.) 1 

Enough cases have been enumerated to prove our 
point. 2 

As a rule, even when at the first sitting the subject has 
shown a satisfactory grasp of the mechanism of auto- 
suggestion, we shall facilitate his progress by asking him 
to attend further sittings, twice a week at first, then once 
a week, and thenceforward once a fortnight or once a 
month for a time. As when swimming is being taught, 
the pupil must not be left to himself too soon. 

Most people, in fact, are greatly influenced by what is 
said and thought by those with whom they associate. 
The arguments of routinists and professional sceptics 
end by shaking their nascent confidence, above all when 
these arguments are dinned into their ears day after day, 
or are presented in an elegant and logical form by a man 
who is cultivated though superficial. Those only who 
can think for themselves, those who do not estimate the 
truth of an idea by the number or the vivacity of the 

1 Privately communicated. 

2 A detailed register of cases is kept in the archives of the 
Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute at Geneva. 



CONCRETE RESULTS 281 

tongues that defend it — and such persons are rare — can 
readily dispense with lessons in suggestion. The others, 
the majority, will do well to steep themselves from time 
to time in the atmosphere of the sittings. 1 

Moreover, in the sitting, the ideas which form the ob- 
ject of suggestion are proposed to the subject without 
any effort on his part, for they are formulated by an- 
other. (Theoretically, a phonograph might do this as 
well as a living person.) All that the subject has to do 
is to watch the flow of ideas as he watches the succession 
of pictures on a screen ; whereas in autosuggestion in the 
strict sense of the term the ideas must be initiated by the 
subject himself, and this requires at least a minimum of 
effort. At the outset, there is a risk that the subject will 
exaggerate the effort. When suggestion is induced by 
another, effort can be entirely relinquished, and it is 
therefore easier for the subject to realize the state of re- 
laxation requisite for the working of autosuggestion. 
We know, indeed, that autosuggestion is fruitful pre- 
cisely in proportion as it is distinguished from voluntary 
effort. 

The number of sittings requisite for cure will obvi- 
ously vary, in different subjects, and still more in differ- 
ent cases. 

From this point of view, cases of peculiar interest are 
those in which the morbid state is auto suggestive in 
origin and simulates a bodily disorder. Here a counter- 
suggestion sometimes brings about immediate cure. 
Such a cure may even be regarded as a criterion on 

1 From this outlook, the reading of a manual may take the 
place of sittings. The author hopes that his book may serve 
such a purpose. 



282 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

which we can base the assertion that the trouble was 
solely due to spontaneous autosuggestion, that there was 
no organic lesion whatever, that the whole thing was due 
to unconscious simulation. (See Part I, Chapter 
VIII, Conditional Suggestions; refer also to the ex- 
ample of subconscious teleology given in Part I, Chap- 
ter X.) 

Here are examples of such immediate cures, where the 
countersuggestion has instantaneously neutralized the 
earlier autosuggestion. 

1. A woman of Nancy, 80 years of age. For three 
years she had suffered from generalized pains which 
made it impossible for her to get about without the aid 
of two walking-sticks. She was able to leave the first 
sitting unassisted by these sticks, and she no longer uses 
them. 1 

2. Professor Gillet of Belfort suffered from aphonia. 
He could begin speaking in normal tones, but the 
aphonia invariably came on after he had spoken for ten 
or fifteen minutes. Various doctors were consulted, and 
not one of them could discover any lesion in the vocal 
organs. One of these advisers, however, said the patient 
was affected with ' * senility of the larynx, ' ' and this con- 
firmed him in the notion that he would never recover. 
He came to Nancy during the vacation. A lady advised 
him to consult Coue. He refused for a time, but finally 
agreed to do so, notwithstanding his absolute unbelief in 
the effects of suggestion. 

Coue made some suggestions to him none the less, and 

asked him to return two days later. When he kept the 

appointment, he said that on the previous day he had 

been able to converse for two hours without becoming 

1 Privately communicated 



CONCRETE RESULTS 283 

affected with aphonia. On his next visit, four days from 
the first, there had been no return of the aphonia, al- 
though he had not only spoken freely in the interval, but 
had even sung. He was cured. 

Since then Professor Gillet, freed from his simulated 
infirmity, has been able to continue his university career. 
He has become one of Coue 's disciples. In the Bulletin 
Ecole de Nancy for the year 1913 he published a study 
of autosuggestion from which we had occasion to quote 
on p. 107. 1 

3. Louis Schmidt, aged 44, of Jezainville (Meurthe et 
Moselle), had an attack of indigestion, as a sequel of 
which he became affected with almost complete paralysis 
of the arms and legs. He was sent to the departmental 
infirmary, and remained there for a while without im- 
provement. When he came to consult Coue, he could 
hardly walk; his legs, he said, were "like cotton- wool. ' ' 
After the first sitting, he could walk, and could even run. 
He had a relapse a few months later, but was restored 
to health once more by suggestive treatment. 2 

4. A soldier wounded in the war and invalided out of 
the army was unable, despite mecanotherapeutic treat- 
ment, to move his right leg except with the jerky impul- 
sion of an artificial limb. Cure ensued upon the first 
suggestion. 

Strange as are these cases of autosuggestive simulation 
which yield promptly to a countersuggestion, perhaps 
yet more remarkable are cases which appear precisely 
similar, cases in which, as in the former group, there is 
no trace of organic lesion, but which prove more rebel- 
lious to suggestive treatment than do many cases that are 

1 Gillet's own case is reported by Coue, op. cit, p. 26. 

2 Reported by Coue in the Bulletin for 1914. 



284 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

indisputably of organic origin. Consider the following 
instance : 

Miss M., aged 30, of Nancy, had suffered for six 
years from violent pains in the bladder. She had been 
treated by various methods, and had been subjected to 
an operation, with the result that she was informed by 
the surgeon there was no organic lesion. "It's all 
nerves!" he told her. "I can do nothing for you." 
Thereby he intensified the pernicious autosuggestion, 
and the patient grew worse. At length she sought 
Coue's advice. The suggestion he induced had to strug- 
gle with the antecedent suggestion, and it was a long 
time before the countersuggestion could get the upper 
hand. Progress followed each sitting, but the advance 
was almost imperceptible. So deep-rooted was the prior 
suggestion that eight months were requisite for the 
cure. 1 

This is not an isolated example. It appears, rather, 
to be typical of an important series. The question there- 
fore arises, why these cases of autosuggestive simulation 
are sometimes perfectly easy to cure by a countersugges- 
tion, and why the cure is sometimes so difficult. The 
difference between the two types is remarkable, and can- 
not fail to rivet the attention. The cause must doubtless 
be sought in the special characteristics of the antecedent 
spontaneous suggestion. As far as our knowledge goes 
(which is not very far) , we may formulate the following 
hypothesis: 

1. Sometimes the antecedent spontaneous suggestion 

is the outcome of a simple idea, one that is not ramified, 

one that is isolated in the mental mass. In that case the 

idea is as easy to eradicate as the "I cannot unclasp 

1 Privately communicated. 



CONCRETE RESULTS 285 

my fingers" of the contracture experiments. A single 
countersuggestion is enough. 

2. Sometimes, on the other hand, the spontaneous 
suggestion has struck roots in all directions ; the threads 
of subconscious association spread throughout the mental 
mass; we are no longer confronted with a simple idea, 
but with what the psychoanalysts have termed a com- 
plex, an integration of images, memories, sentiments, 
conscious and unconscious reasonings, interlacing one 
with another, and to all appearance inextricably inter- 
tangled. 

Upon psychoanalysis devolves the task of reconstitut- 
ing these complexes, and consequently also the task of 
verifying the foregoing hypothesis. It may be added 
that when there has been spontaneous suggestion by com- 
plex, the indication is rather for psychoanalytic treat- 
ment than for simple suggestive treatment. 

In exemplification of what has just been said, let me 
briefly recount the case of Miss B. M., aged 27, a case 
subjected to psychoanalysis. She suffered from quite a 
number of morbid symptoms, whose root cause was re- 
vealed by the analysis to be a scarcely acknowledged 
wish for a life spent in more comfortable circumstances, 
where she would have fuller opportunities for intellec- 
tual development. One of the symptoms was a severe 
neuralgia of the arm. Suggestion from me and auto- 
suggestion on the patient's part led to its improvement, 
but not to its cure. I learned from the analysis that this 
symptom was due to subconscious imitation. In earlier 
days a schoolfellow of the patient, suffering from an ac- 
cident affecting a paralyzed arm, had, owing to this acci- 
dent and to the consequently enforced confinement to a 
couch, secured the leisure which enabled her to achieve 



286 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

an intellectual development excelling that of her com- 
panions. From the day when this cause was explained 
to my patient, the neuralgia disappeared never to re- 
turn. 1 

For cases in which the morbid symptoms are due to 
spontaneous suggestion by a simple idea, psychoanalytic 
treatment can never compete in rapidity of cure with 
suggestive treatment, for the latter, as we have seen, may 
give instant relief. But where the trouble is due to spon- 
taneous suggestion by complex, psychoanalytic treat- 
ment, though tedious, may save time in the end, and may 
give more satisfactory results. If I may use the simili- 
tude, psychoanalytic treatment is to suggestive treatment 
what algebra is to arithmetic. It complicates simple 
problems, but it simplifies complex problems. 

When therefore we have a malady probably due to 
autosuggestion, a malady which proves rebellious to 
treatment by the Nancy method although the patient is 
not in general refractory to that method, we should have 
recourse to psychoanalysis. 

When, on the other hand, it is the patient who is re- 
fractory, when he finds it difficult to grasp the mechan- 
ism of autosuggestion, when he makes too much effort, 
when he proves unable to isolate himself and to concen- 
trate satisfactorily, etc. — the indication is, with the sub- 
ject's consent, to have recourse to profound hypnosis or 
induced sleep, which, according to the commonly received 
opinion, "increases suggestibility." But now, before 
dealing with the question of hypnosis, we must clear up 
the problem of suggestibility. 

1 This case was recorded by the author in the Archives de 
psychologie, December, 1916, Kiindig, Geneva. 



CHAPTER FIVE 

ACCEPTIVITY AND SUGGESTIBILITY 

Let us recall the definition of suggestion given in the 
Introduction to the present work. 

In heterosuggestion; the only kind of suggestion usu- 
ally considered, we recognized the presence of two 
phases : 

1. An idea, imposed by the operator, is accepted by 
the subject. 

2. This idea undergoes transformation within the 
subject into the corresponding reality. 

According to the prevalent view, the essential phase 
of suggestion is the first of these two phases. It is upon 
this that the definition of suggestion must be based. But 
in our view the second is the essential phase. Sugges- 
tion, we contend, is not a phenomenon characterized by 
the movement of something from the operator to the sub- 
ject. It is a psychophysiological phenomenon comprised 
within the mind of the subject. Thereon must be based 
our theory of autosuggestion. 

Let us, therefore, distinguish the two following phases : 

1. Acceptation. 

2. The ideoreflex process (which, for us, is sugges- 
tion) . 

This distinction is vital, but writers on this subject 

287 



288 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

have failed, hitherto, to draw it with sufficient clearness. 
While they incline to one opinion or the other, to the 
view that suggestion is comprised in the former phase, 
or to the view that suggestion is comprised in the latter, 
they fail, as a rule, to differentiate accurately between 
the two outlooks. In practice they continue to regard 
suggestion as an integral and synthetic phenomenon, the 
product of two factors: an idea proposed by the oper- 
ator, accepted by the subject, and realized by the latter. 
Their formula would run : 

suggestion = acceptation -(- ideoreflex process. 

What is acceptation? 

We have already employed this term when speaking of 
suggestions proposed in the state of profound hypnosis 
(see Part III, Chapter I) . We then caught a glimpse of 
the truth that acceptation must not be looked upon as 
an act of conscious and deliberate will. We can now 
go further than this. The term " acceptation ' ' connotes 
the notion that the idea penetrates the mind in virtue 
of a consent which in other cases might be withheld; 
that the will and the intelligence are in abeyance; that 
the idea is not consciously controlled, but is the object 
of a spontaneous adhesion. In a word, it is not the 
conscious but the subconscious which accepts. /The idea, 
instead of being confronted with others and judged from 
an intellectual and volitional viewpoint, is granted hospi- 
tality like a welcome stranger. It remains isolated, and 
therefore is not subject to contradiction. 

We may speak of acceptation, not only in heterosug- 
gestion, but also in spontaneous autosuggestion. In the 
latter, as well as in the former, an accepted idea is an 



ACCEPTIVITY AND SUGGESTIBILITY 289 

idea implanted in the mind without the exercise of any 
control. 

Credulity, routine, indifference, confidence in the hyp- 
notizer, the latter 's " personal influence " — all these are 
factors of acceptation. 

Now acceptation, by isolating the idea, by avoiding 
the establishment of associative and intellectual regu- 
latory relationships between this idea and others, favours 
a concentration of the mind upon the accepted idea, and 
consequently favours suggestion. But acceptation is not 
itself suggestion, either wholly or in part. 

The same confusion is met with when we pass from the 
question of suggestion to that of suggestibility. 

By the suggestibility of any person, we mean the 
readiness with which, on the average, that person will 
realize a suggestion. 

Thus, as the definition of suggestion varies, the defini- 
tion of suggestibility will vary concomitantly. For most 
writers, suggestibility means the ease with which the 
subject realizes the ideas proposed by the operator. For 
us, on the other hand, suggestibility denotes the ease 
with which the second phase of the phenomenon ensues, 
whereas for the ease of acceptation we propose to use the 
term acceptivity. 

The distinction becomes necessary for those who, like 
ourselves, take their stand upon autosuggestion. Let us 
consider reflective suggestion, which is our ideal. It 
presupposes that the ideas, the objects, of our sugges- 
tions, have been deliberately, intelligently, chosen; its 
primary function is to strive against harmful sponta- 
neous suggestions, and to repair the damage these have 
caused. Far from implying the passive acceptation of 



290 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

the ideas which pass through our minds, it exacts from 
us unceasing self-control. It insists that there shall be 
a strict frontier customs service, ever on the watch to 
prevent the ingress of undesirable ideas/*- To sum up, 
whereas acceptation, or the absence of control, is an ad- 
juvant to heterosuggestion and spontaneous suggestion; 
on the other hand, non-acceptation, or control, is the pri- 
mary condition for the practice of reflective autosugges- 
tion. It is here that the confusion becomes serious. 

Binet, faithful to his definition of suggestion, tends to 
identify suggestibility with what we have termed accep- 
tivity. The experiments whereby he measures ' ' suggest- 
ibility," serve rather to measure acceptivity, to measure 
mental passivity. 1 

Let us consider some of these experiments. 

First Series (suggestion produced by the influence of 
a guiding idea) . 

Children are shown a drawing of twenty lines in series. 
The length of these lines increases up to the fifth, but the 
others are all of equal length. Having looked once at 
this drawing, they have to reproduce it from memory. 
Most of them draw the lines of increasing length beyond 
the fifth, and often up to the very end of the series. 

Second Series (suggestion produced by personal influ- 
ence) . 

Wools of various colours are shown to a child. When 
we are sure that it knows the names of all the colours, it- 
has to write these names down. As it is writing, the 
name of some other colour is suggested, verbally. Often 
the child writes down this latter name. 

1 Binet, La suggestibilite, Paris, 1900; Giroud, La suggestibilite 
dans les enfants de Tecole, Annee psychologique, 1912, 



ACCEPTIVITY AND SUGGESTIBILITY 291 

The experiments of the first series bear upon sponta- 
neous suggestion; those of the second series, upon in- 
duced suggestion. They can have no bearing on reflect- 
ive suggestion, for in this the acceptivity would run 
counter to the suggestibility, and no confusion could pos- 
sibly arise. Binet, however, appears to ignore reflective 
suggestion. 

The kind of acceptivity shown in the experiments, 
which is for Binet suggestibility, obviously puts the sub- 
ject in a worse position than if he were devoid of it. 
Binet, therefore, draws the following conclusion : 

1 ' If we point out to the children the mistake they have 
made, if we show them how they came to make it and 
where their attention lapsed, they simultaneously receive 
a lesson in things and a lesson in morals. The teaching 
is often profitable. In many instances, as test succeeds 
test, the pupils learn to avoid these errors, and become 
less suggestible." 

We see at once how necessary it is that this mental pas- 
sivity should no longer receive the name of suggestibil- 
ity, since the latter term is likewise used to denote the 
faculty an idea has of realizing itself by a subconscious 
process within the mind of the subject. 

Whereas, in the case of spontaneous and induced sug- 
gestion, the limits are by no means easy to determine (a 
fact which to some extent justifies the confusion), in the 
case of reflective suggestion, on the other hand, it is pos- 
sible to isolate suggestibility. 

By suitable exercises (the use of Chevreul's pendu- 
lum, Abramowsky's experiments, 1 etc.), we can measure 
this suggestibility while using the same principles as 
Binet. But the nature of the exercises must be entirely 
1 See Part II, Chapter VIII. 



292 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

modified. Like Binet, we may denote an individual's 

average suggestibility by the fraction -. We then exam- 

s 

ine this person in various emotional states, in a condition 
of slight hypnosis, etc., measuring by the method of aver- 
ages the influence of these different factors, denominated 
fv A* A* - - - /»• Thus the formula of suggestibility 
in the given circumstances would be : 

C A^A^A ' • '^ fn 



It would likewise be interesting to study the variations 
in suggestibility according to age and sex. Each age, 
for example, might have a mean coefficient of suggesti- 
bility - which would be a standard of comparison for 

2d 

the individual suggestibility — 

s 

Suggestibility, in the sense we give to the term, is un- 
questionably related to the sensitiveness and to the plas- 
ticity of the nervous system. In children suggestibility, 
like acceptivity, is unquestionably superior to the same 
faculty in the adult. But whereas acceptivity is a source 
of weakness, and must be combatted, suggestibility is a 
source of strength, and must be fostered. If there be a 
tendency for the physical conditions on which suggesti- 
bility depends to grow less favourable as age advances, 
we must, by special training (in collection, contention, 
and autohypnosis) , encourage the mental conditions 
which will reinforce suggestibility. By cultivating this 
faculty, while endeavouring to combat acceptivity, we 
prepare the subject to carry out beneficial autosugges- 
tions and to repress those that are of a noxious character. 



ACCEPTIVITY AND SUGGESTIBILITY 293 

So great is the power of words, that it suffices to give 
the same name to two things which are quite different 
and often opposed, to give the same name to acceptivity 
and suggestibility, for the discredit which justly attaches 
to the former to be unjustly transferred to the latter. 

It is largely owing to this confusion that public opinion 
has as a rule taken exception to educative suggestion. 
Boirac, in his Psychologic inconnu, 1 tells us he would 
speak of the use of suggestion in mental orthopaedics, 
"were it not that this particular order of applications, 
inaugurated in our days by Dr. Berillon, still seems to 
be generally discountenanced." 

In truth, suggestion should be utilized, not merely for 
the orthopaedics of the mind, but likewise for the normal 
training of the mind. We shall return to this question 
at some length in Chapter VII. We are content, for the 
moment, to point out that the educationist, who must 
miss no chances, will turn to the best possible account 
even the acceptivity, the passivity, the mental plasticity 
if you will, which is at its maximum in the child. 

He is aware that children readily accept ideas and 
transform them into suggestions. He will therefore be 
careful to suggest those ideas only that are healthy and 
beneficial. Nay more, as the young intelligence awakens, 
he will turn passivity to account in order to counteract 
passivity. He will strive more and more to make the 
child accept the idea, that no idea is to be accepted with- 
out reflection and without control. At the same time he 
will teach the child to make deliberate use of suggestion, 
to find the material of suggestion for itself. Having 
made the best possible use of the child's acceptivity, he 

1 Alcan, Paris, 1908. English translation by Dudley Wright, 
Psychic Science, Rider, L,ondon, 1918. 



294 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

will proceed to bring about the progressive atrophy of 
the faculty. Having employed aeceptivity to aid sug- 
gestibility, he will employ autosuggestion to destroy ae- 
ceptivity. Thus aeceptivity will have played the part of 
those clay moulds which are used for the casting of 
bronze statues. 



CHAPTER SIX 

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE THEORY OF HYPNOSIS 

The phenomena comprised under the general name of 
hypnosis present two aspects, physiological and psycho- 
logical. In the actual state of our knowledge, a psycho- 
logical description can be carried further than a physio- 
logical description. "The theories which are termed 
psychological,' ' writes Claparede with perfect justice, 
"have the great advantage of permitting a far more de- 
tailed explanation, a closer and more systematic analysis. 
If, on the other hand, we attempt to use objective phrase- 
ology, when we have spoken of cortical inhibition, of the 
stagnation of neurocymes, and of the rupture of syn- 
apses, we have said practically all that there is to say. 
There are still too many gaps in our knowledge of the 
physiology of the brain. The attempt to reconstruct 
hypnosis in physiological concepts is perhaps to-day al- 
most as chimerical as would be the attempt to reproduce 
the delicate traceries of the Louvre with the clumsy ma- 
terials in a child's box of toy bricks. As for the eminent 
architects who have vainly essayed the first-named re- 
construction, they must e'en console themselves with the 
reflection that their failure has been due to the circum- 
stances of the case, and not to their own incapacity. ' ' * 
Contemporary philosophy, breaking away from the 

1 Claparede et Baade, Recherches experimentales sur quelques 
processus psycljiques simples dans un cas d'hypnose, Kiindig, 
Geneva, and Archives des psychologie, 1909. 

295 



296 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

traditions of Spinoza and Leibnitz, tends increasingly to 
invalidate the hypothesis of psychophysical parallelism. 
It would seem that we are hardly justified in saying that 
every physiological fact is expressible in psychological 
terminology, and conversely. Conceivably, of course, 
hypnosis is the outcome of purely physiological causes, 
which must be elucidated on the physiological plane. 
But in my own view, this does not hold good. I con- 
sider that the very production of hypnosis can be ex- 
pounded in psychological terms (without prejudice to 
the concomitant physiological phenomena). 

We have described under the name of hypnosis, 1 delib- 
erately chosen, states of somnolence which are distin- 
guishable from ordinary drowsiness by their mode of 
production. We found, in f act, ' that the originator of 
these conditions was the immobilization of the attention, 
either by fixation (luminous point, noise of falling 
water), or by seesaw (lullaby, regular rhythm). From 
the difference in the mode of production of the condition 
there results a peculiar modification of the attention dur- 
ing the condition itself. To this modification we have 
given the name of contention. The slighter degrees of 
hypnosis, the only ones which have been hitherto de- 
scribed in the present work, are not followed by amnesia. 
They leave no gap in the consciousness, and the conten- 
tion which characterizes them is a phenomenon of intro- 
spection — as anyone can perceive for himself. In this 
state, a minimum of effort suffices to retain an idea in 
the centre of mental vision; comparative mental immo- 
bility exists. Contention, as we have said, is a psycho- 
logical equivalent of voluntary attention, minus effort. 
a Part II, Chapter V. 



THE THEORY OF HYPNOSIS 297 

Now, when the stimulus which has produced the hyp- 
nosis is prolonged, the somnolence grows deeper and 
deeper, and may culminate in sleep. This is profound 
hypnosis or induced sleep. The passage from somnolence 
to sleep is effected by insensible transitions. The differ- 
ence between the two states is one of degree merely, not 
of kind. 

1. Let us first consider the production of profound 
hypnosis. For this, practitioners are agreed in utilizing 
as a preliminary the immobilization of the attention. 
The commonest method is to direct the patient to fix 
his gaze on the practitioner's eyes or on some luminous 
point. 

This sustained attention is no more than a means for 
the production of relaxation, which, as we have ex- 
plained when speaking of slight hypnosis, is indispen- 
sable to the oncoming of sleep. / Fatigue of the attention 
favours the relaxation, and this explains certain details 
in the technique of Braid, the founder of hypnotism. 
He writes: "A patient may be hypnotized by keeping 
the eyes fixed in any direction. It occurs most slowly 
and feebly when the eyes are directed straight forward, 
and most rapidly and intensely when they can be main- 
tained in the position of a double internal and upward 
squint." 1 

Berillon has realized that sustained attention is merely 
a means to an end, and that relaxation is the end. He 

1 James Braid, Neurypnology, Chapter II, Churchill, London, 
and Black, Edinburgh, 1843. The passage will be found on p. 
115 of the most convenient work on Braid's life and writings, 
Waite, Braid on Hypnotism, Redway, London, 1809. 



298 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

actually invites the subject to relaxation as soon as a 
certain degree of fatigue has resulted from the immobili- 
zation of the attention. He writes : ' * Instead of asking 
the subject, as previously, to fix his eyes on some point 
close at hand, I invite him to look straight in front of 
him, to look out into the infinite. My sole object in so 
doing is to secure complete relaxation from any accommo- 
dative effort. The subject's aspect soon shows that he 
has become utterly indifferent to everything that is going 
on around him. He is, therefore, in the state of uninter- 
estedness favourable to sleep. The period of going-to- 
sleep is drawing to a close ; sleep is imminent ; and upon 
the slightest inducement, in obedience to the law of least 
effort, the subject's eyelids will close and he will fall 
asleep." 1 

Bernheim, who affirms that "suggestion is the key to 
all the problems of hypnosis, ' ' constructs a theory which 
is at once too simple and too systematic. He overlooks 
the indubitable role of immobilization of the attention. 
Nevertheless, his demonstration that suggestion can pro- 
duce hypnosis unaided does not conflict with the forego- 
ing observations, for suggestion presupposes the fixation 
of the attention on an idea ; and consequently every sug- 
gestion, at the moment of formulation, is accompanied 
by an immobilization of the attention. The two actions 
supplement one another, the fixation by an idea replaces 
the fixation by a luminous point. 

There is one form of induced sleep which does not pre- 
suppose the immobilization of the attention. When a 
subject is plunged into profound hypnosis, brought 
about by one of the ordinary methods, we may propose 

^erillon, Theorie psychomecanique de l'hypnotisme. Revue 
de rhypnotisme. 



THE THEORY OF HYPNOSIS 299 

to him the following posthypnotic suggestion: " Every 
time that I touch your right shoulder," or "every time 
I show you a card on which is inscribed the word 
'sleep' " (the precise formula is indifferent), "you will 
sleep as soundly as you are sleeping at this moment." 
These accesses of sleep due to posthypnotic suggestion 
will be the result of pure suggestion, without any ante- 
cedent immobilization of the attention. But we must not 
forget that the first sleep has been induced by one of the 
customary methods. The subject to whom we suggest, 
when he is asleep, that he will subsequently sleep in like 
manner, may perhaps reproduce by pure suggestion the 
immobilization of the attention which he has previously 
experienced. 

Coue, who does not share Bernheim's exclusivism, ac- 
cepts the existence of the two methods. We have just 
seen that if we set out from the immobilization of the at- 
tention as a principle, the two procedures are closely 
akin. Hence we must not be astonished at the likeness 
of the results. Coue notes the likeness without attempt- 
ing to explain it. Here is his definition of hypnotic 
sleep : 

"We may define it thus. Hypnotic sleep is sleep in- 
duced by an artificial cause (narcotic drugs excluded), 
such as the conscious or unconscious fixation of a more 
or less luminous object, or the use of suggestion or auto- 
suggestion. 

"Although the causes are different, the sleep appears 
to be the same in the two cases, and this sleep, though 
extremely restful, is in my opinion very different from 
ordinary, sleep. ' ' * 

1 Coue, lye sommeil hypnotique et ses rapports avec la sugges- 
tion, Bulletin Ecole de Nancy, 1914. 



300 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

2. What are the psychological characters of this pe- 
culiar sleep? If Coue affirms it to be "very different 
from ordinary sleep, ' ' this is not because he ignores the 
kinship between the two, a kinship which is far closer 
than most people imagine. -But the first Nancy School 
was prone to dwell on the traits common to the two con- 
ditions, and it is therefore natural and justifiable that 
Coue should emphasize the differences. 

From the days of Liebault onwards, the authorities of 
the first Nancy School followed by several other special- 
ists and notably by Vogt and Forel, drawing attention to 
the likenesses, showed that, in general, both states facili- 
tate suggestion ; that catalepsy can be induced in natural 
sleep (Liebault) ; that the intellection of the words ut- 
tered by bystanders is not completely abolished during 
natural sleep. As an example of the last statement, it 
may be pointed out that one who snores will often stop 
snoring when told to do so. 

Speaking generally, the authors who, with Bernheim, 
regard suggestion as the cause of hypnotic sleep, natu- 
rally tend to identify that condition with normal sleep. 
But, to consider the matter without prejudice, this iden- 
tification must not be pushed to an extreme. Claparede, 
who has not committed himself to any theory of hypno- 
tism, is an impartial judge. He writes : 

"Let us make it perfectly clear what we are suggest- 
ing when we hypnotize. If we say to the patient, 
' Sleep!' why does he not pass into ordinary slumber? 
Unless we agree that hypnosis is the same thing as nor- 
mal sleep (and we have already refuted this hypothesis), 
the formula of ' suggested sleep ' is insufficient to account 
for the phenomena. If we wish to maintain that hyp- 
nosis is due to suggestion, we have to admit that the very 



THE THEORY OF HYPNOSIS 301 

fact of putting anyone to sleep by suggestion gives the 
sleep a peculiar character. The question then arises, 
By what mechanism does this peculiar character origi- 
nate?"* 

The question is pertinent. The present writer thinks 
he can provide the elements of an answer. Hypnosis 
may be due to suggestion, but the very fact of sug- 
gestion presupposes the immobilization of the attention, 
an immobilization which is therefore common to all the 
methods for producing hypnosis, and wherein will be 
found the real reason for the peculiar characteristics of 
this condition. 

Profound hypnosis exhibits in an intensified form the 
distinctive traits of slight hypnosis, in which the subject 
experiences a sense of vacancy, of mental immobility, 
giving rise to contention. Now we think we have been 
able to explain these characters as the outcome of the 
preliminary immobilization of the attention (Part II, 
Chapter V). The same cause is present here, but it is 
intensified. The idea of mental immobility, 2 as happens 
with any idea that is in the mind when sleep begins, 
dominates the whole of the sleep. The subject inevitably 
accepts a suggestion of mental immobility, and this suf- 
fices to explain the chief psychological differences be- 
tween hypnotic sleep and normal sleep. 

1 Claparede, Interpretation psychologique de Phypnose, re- 
printed from the Journal fiir Psychologie und Neurologie, Barth, 
Leipzig. 

2 Cf. Carl Picht, Hypnose, Suggestion und Erziehung, Klink- 
hardt, Leipzig, 1913. According to Picht, hypnotic sleep differs 
from ordinary sleep in this respect, that the former is the out- 
come of a concentration, whereas the latter is the outcome of a 
dispersion, of the attention. 



302 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

Can we prove the existence, during profound hyp- 
nosis, of this (comparative) mental immobility, of the 
sensation of mental vacancy which accompanies it, and 
of the contention which is their result ? 

"It is generally agreed," writes Claparede, "that 
concentration of the attention exists during hypnosis. 
But I am not aware that any experiments have hitherto 
been undertaken for the verification of this hypothesis, 
and in order to ascertain the precise nature of the modi- 
fication of the attention." 1 

Claparede has himself organized a series of experi- 
ments to explore the psychology of the hypnotized sub- 
ject. His results, considered by themselves, do not 
seem to furnish an answer to the foregoing question. 
But when we juxtapose them with what introspec- 
tion reveals concerning contention, they seem to throw 
much light on the matter, and to justify our hypothe- 
sis. 

Here are the leading results, as far as they bear on the 
problem : 

a. "Hypnosis tends to slacken associative reactions. 
. . . We must note, however, that while this is true 
on the average, certain associative acts may take place 
under hypnosis just as rapidly as in the waking state. 
This shows that the inhibitory theory is inadequate. 
Whilst associative inhibition is favoured by the state of 
hypnosis, it does not constitute that state. . . . 

b. "If we examine Madame Bui's associative activity, 
not when she is performing an experiment, but when she 
is left to her own devices, what do we note? Absolute 
passivity. . . . Left to herself, Madame Bui says 
'My mind is a blank'; she is indifferent to everything. 

1 Interpretation psychologique de l'hypnose. 



THE THEORY OF HYPNOSIS 303 

She seems to have lost that constant concern about the 
present moment and the moment which is just coming, 
that concern which is the mainspring of all our actions 
and all our thoughts. 1 

"In Madame Bui, at any rate, the hypnotic state was 
essentially characterized by a suspension of the function 
of initiative. This conclusion has been drawn by other 
observers. We have seen that several authors, and 
Wundt in especial, characterize hypnosis by the suspen- 
sion of voluntary activity. 

c. "The power of adding numbers together is not 
during hypnosis appreciably different from the same 
subject's power during the waking state." 2 

"What are termed the intellectual faculties seem to be 
little if at all affected." 8 

The juxtaposition of these observations is most in- 
structive. We learn from it that two apparently contra- 
dictory phenomena are present in hypnosis : 

1. Voluntary activity is suspended. 

2. What are termed the intellectual faculties appear 
to be little if at all affected. 

This seems very remarkable. The use of the intellectual 
faculties normally presupposes the working of voluntary 
attention; now here voluntary activity is suspended, and 
yet the intellectual faculties are none the worse. But the 
apparent contradiction disappears if we admit that hyp- 
nosis is characterized by a modification of the attention, 

1 Cf. Beaunis : " When we ask a hypnotized subject, as I have 
often done, 'What are you thinking about?' the almost in- 
variable answer is, ' Nothing.' — We have here a veritable condi- 
tion of inertia, or rather one of intellectual repose." 

2 Claparede and Baade, op. cit. 

' Claparede, Interpretation psychologique de Thypnose. 



304 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

namely, contention, which is the psychological equivalent 
of voluntary attention, minus effort. 1 

Furthermore, we have just seen that, according to the 
hypnotized subject's own statements, profound hypnosis 
is characterized by a sensation of mental vacancy. 

We have thus verified the hypothesis that there is 
no essential difference between profound hypnosis and 
what we have termed slight hypnosis. We are therefore 
justified in applying the term hypnosis to both condi- 
tions. 

One point may still seem obscure. The foregoing 
explanation appears to ignore one of the essential char- 
acteristics of classical hypnotism, namely, the rapport 
between the operator and the hypnotized subject, so that 
the subject, despite his sleep, understands the words of 
the operator. 

This rapport presupposes that there shall be an opera- 
tor. But hypnosis, as described in this book, does not 
necessarily require a hypnotizer. When I put myself to 
sleep by autosuggestion, by voluntary autohypnosis, or 
when I am sent to sleep by a soothing rhythm, there is 
hypnosis, but there is no hypnotizer. 

In hypnosis of the classical type there is a hypnotizer, 
and throughout the hypnotic sleep the subject's mind is 
obsessed by the personality of this hypnotizer. If we 
recall the law that sleep is dominated by the obsessive 
idea or ideas which were in the mind at the moment of 

a From the physiological standpoint, catalepsy is a pendant to 
contention, although it is a less constant character of hypnosis. 
We might say that contention is a catalepsy of the attention. 
In contention, the muscles of attention do their work without 
effort. 



THE THEORY OF HYPNOSIS 305 

going to sleep, we shall realize that this obsessive presence 
of the hypnotizer may serve to explain the maintenance 
of communication between hypnotizer and subject. 
When we fall asleep pondering an unsolved problem, we 
give free rein during sleep to all the ideas which are 
more or less intimately connected with the problem, and 
without the facility given to the flow of these ideas the 
solution of the problem during sleep would be impossible. 
In like manner, during profound induced hypnosis, the 
subject's mind remains open to everything connected 
with the hypnotizer, and to his voice in especial. The 
mother who goes to sleep with her thoughts full of her 
child, and who wakens at the child's least cry, furnishes 
us with an example which is not essentially different 
from that of the hypnotized subject recognizing the 
voice of the practitioner. 

In a word, the fundamental characteristic of hypnosis 
is a peculiar modification of attention, i. e. what we have 
named contention. 

If hypnosis increases suggestibility, this may be de- 
pendent on various features of hypnosis (features which 
are in part common to hypnosis and to ordinary sleep) ; 
but for the most part it is due to contention, which annuls 
voluntary effort, a condition unfavourable to suggestion, 
while maintaining attention, a condition above all others 
indispensable to suggestion. 

As for the apparent contradictions pointed out in 
Part III, Chapter I, where it was shown that suggesti- 
bility seems now increased now diminished by hypnosis, 
these contradictions vanish, so I believe, as soon as 
acceptivity is carefully distinguished from suggestibility 
properly so called. (See the preceding chapter.) 



306 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

We have to admit that, as a rule, and probably in all 
cases, hypnosis is characterized by increased suggesti- 
bility. But it is not necessarily characterized by in- 
creased aceeptivity. 

Having learned the nature and the true significance 
of profound hypnosis, it remains to ask what are the 
best ways of inducing the condition. We wish to induce 
it easily, and we wish it to be fruitful when induced. 

1. When we speak of the immobilization of the at- 
tention, our language is extremely abstract. There is not 
only one kind of attention. There are visual attention, 
auditory attention, mental attention, etc. A completer 
result will be obtained if we can immobilize them all 
simultaneously. (By occupying one, we tend to quiet 
the others, and may thus bring about a sufficient degree 
of immobilization.) We may engage the various forms 
of attention at one and the same time, appealing to sight 
by a luminous point, to hearing by a soothing and 
monotonous voice, to touch by rhythmic passes, and to 
the mind by the idea of sleep. Let us ignore the ques- 
tion whether the passes, over and above their effect upon 
the attention, have the peculiar physical action ascribed 
to them by the magnetizers. 

2. The suggestions we have to propose will be more 
likely to be efficacious if we employ methods tending to 
establish a close rapport between operator and subject. 
Such methods are those which tend to make the opera- 
tor's presence a positive obsession for the subject. For 
instance, we shall appeal to sight with a luminous object, 
and the best will be for this object to be held by the 
hypnotizer, who will impress upon it a rhythmic move- 
ment. The voice, and passes, are additional means for 



THE THEORY OF HYPNOSIS 307 

emphasizing the hypnotized personality. In his ordi- 
nary practice, Coue uses methods which satisfy these 
requirements. Here is his own account of them. 

"You move a luminous object to and fro before the 
subject's eyes, requesting him to follow this object with 
his eyes, but without turning his head. Meanwhile you 
make to him the following suggestions: 'Think well 
that you are going to sleep; as you follow the moving 
object with your eyes, you feel a lethargy stealing over 
you; your arms, your legs, become heavy; your whole 
frame grows heavy; your eyelids are heavy, they grow 
heavier and heavier, they are like lead, you find it more 
and more difficult to keep your eyes open. Your sight is 
becoming obscured, your eyes are watering, you can 
hardly distinguish anything in the room, sleep begins to 
overpower you. I shall slowly count up to twenty. As 
I count, the longing to sleep will steadily increase. Be- 
fore I reach twenty, your eyes will close and you will be 
sound asleep. ' 

* * In most cases, everything happens exactly as you have 
said ; and by the time you pronounce twenty, the subject 
is asleep. If his eyes are not yet closed, say to him in 
a commanding tone, 'Shut your eyes! Sleep !' and he 
instantly closes his eyes and goes to sleep. 

"To make the sleep more profound you say: 'Now 
you are asleep, sound asleep, and as I tell you that you 
are sound asleep, you do in fact feel that your slumber 
becomes deep, very deep, deeper than it has ever been 
before.' This word 'deep,' repeated in such a fashion, 
acts on the subject's mind like the drops of water which 
in the end hollow out the stone." 1 

1 Coue, Le sommeil hypnotique et ses rapports avec la sugges- 
tion. 



308 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

But in general, as we have said, the Nancy method does 
not involve the induction of profound hypnosis. This 
latter condition would seem to be chiefly valuable in 
cases where the subject is maladroit in the use of auto- 
suggestion, above all when he cannot learn to avoid 
making efforts of the will. Profound hypnosis suspends 
the voluntary activity which is impairing the chances of 
success. 



CHAPTER SEVEN 

SUGGESTION IN THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN ' 

Suggestion is a psychophysiological function which 
exists in everyone. It can therefore be trained in every- 
one. No reader who has carefully followed the exposi- 
tion of data and reasoning throughout the preceding 
pages can fail to understand how baseless are all the 
objections that have been made to the use of suggestive 
methods in the education of children. Induced sugges- 
tion is not a violation of the subject's individuality; it is 
a means of training the subject's powers of autosug- 
gestion. Moreover, only in connection with profound 
hypnosis could the idea of such a violation being effected 
possibly arise. Now, we have seen that for the adult the 

1 There have been precursors in this field of educative sug- 
gestion. I may mention the following; 

J. M. Guyau, Education et Heredite, Paris, 1889 (English 
translation, Education and Heredity, Walter Scott, London, 
1891), seems to have inaugurated the idea. 

Walter Rose, Die hypnotische Erziehung der Kinder, Berlin, 
1898, refers to suggestion for the inhibition of instincts such as 
cleptomania and lying. (He looks upon the latter as instinctive 
and as hereditarily transmitted in modern society.) He speaks 
also of the development of new instincts by suggestion. 

The scholastic outlook in especial is voiced by two writers in 
the Zeitschrift fur Philosophic und Padagogik. Horn contrib- 
utes, Suggestion als padagogischer Faktor, neue Bahnen (Heft 
5, 1000). Rausch contributes, Die Suggestion im Dienste der 
Schule (Heft 4, 1901). 

Carl Picht champions the views of Guyau and Rose. See his 
Hypnose Suggestion und Erziehung, Klinkhardt, Leipzig, 1913. 

309 



310 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

use of profound hypnosis is as a rule a subsidiary 
method. Still more is this true of children, whose sug- 
gestibility in the waking state is so extensive. Their high 
suggestibility is a reason for beginning the training of 
autosuggestion in early childhood. 

This training, far from reducing the subject's energy, 
seems, in virtue of its peculiar mechanism, to enhance 
that energy; and it does so in the absence of any sug- 
gestions of a directly energizing character. Besides, not 
merely would it be a mistake to attempt to shield the 
child from all suggestive influences. The thing is an 
impossibility. If suggestive action be not exercised 
methodically, it will be exerted by chance, in the form 
of the countless spontaneous suggestions which daily life 
presents to the child's mind. When we take this sug- 
gestive action under our own guidance, we can ensure 
that it will be beneficent. When, on the other hand, we 
leave it to itself, it gives rise indifferently to good and to 
bad results, and it may eventuate in disaster. 

Unreservedly, therefore, I agree with Herbert 
Parkyn's contention that the deliberate practice of auto- 
suggestion should be taught to children in all our schools. 

I would go further, and would say that autosuggestion 
ought to take a primary place in education. For by its 
use, not merely will the child learn self-control, not 
merely will he develop his physical energies and be 
helped to resist disease, but in addition he will be able to 
develop (in a degree hardly conceivable by those who 
have not seen the method applied) his working powers 
in all fields. He will learn how to obtain the maximum 
of results with a minimum of effort; he will acquire a 
method which will be a standby to him throughout life. 
In the intellectual sphere he will develop all his faculties, 



EDUCATION OF CHILDREN 311 

and memory and attention above all. In especial he will 
learn to like his work. Furthermore, by suggestion, we 
are able to strive advantageously against the bad in- 
clinations and other defects of childhood, most of which 
are indeed themselves to a greater or less degree the out- 
come of antecedent suggestions. It follows from these 
considerations that the suggestive method cannot prop- 
erly be regarded as merely a minor weapon in the peda- 
gogical armamentarium. It can be made the auxiliary 
of all training and of all instruction. To anyone who 
has practised educative suggestion, pedagogical treaties 
which systematically ignore this discipline seem built 
upon shifting sand. In such conditions, the dispute be- 
tween the various complicated methods which claim to 
develop memory, attention, and interest, in children, 
resembles nothing .so much as an interminable argument 
among persons in a hurry as to which is the quickest 
footpath, while they pay no attention to the railroad 
close at hand, to the train which could take them where 
they want to go in a tenth part of the time. 

Doubtless when we are concerned with educating a 
child's tendencies, we must respect, as far as they are 
wholesome, all the most spontaneous tendencies he dis- 
plays, all those which are a sign of his aptitudes and of his 
very nature. Here suggestion must be cautiously used. 
But many of the tastes, many of the tendencies, which 
seem natural to the child, are simply the outcome of 
spontaneous suggestions. Children's games, far from 
being in every case an expression of the child's deeper 
nature, are often purely imitative. As I had occasion to 
point out in an earlier chapter (Part I, Chapter VI), the 
same statement applies to young people's choice of a 
profession. In many cases, therefore, the role of sug- 



312 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

gestion should be to eradicate the factitious tastes and 
tendencies of childhood. We shall be able to safeguard 
this practice by careful observation. Psychoanalysis, for 
example, is competent to reveal the genuinely original 
tendencies, and we shall respect these in so far as they 
are not harmful to the child, or do not promise to be 
harmful to it when it grows up. 

The method of training suggestion which has been de- 
scribed in this book is applicable to children, but may be 
simplified in view of the great suggestibility of youthful 
subjects. The exercises with Chevreul's pendulum are 
especially useful for children. They may be modified 
by making them into a game. For instance, the bob of 
the pendulum may take the form of a bird which has to 
peck a piece of bread, or of a cat chasing a mouse, and so 
on. We can organize competitions. But in their simplest 
form, the exercises will be found sufficiently interesting 
to the great majority of children. 

Quite apart from exercises, quite apart from any pro- 
cedure which recalls therapeutic suggestion, it is possi- 
ble, in large measure, to guide the suggestions that act 
on a child's mind. Thanks to a child's acceptivity, ideas 
which are frequently brought to its notice, ideas uttered 
by parents, teachers, and others in whom it has con- 
fidence, readily become implanted, and initiate sugges- 
tions. Consequently, when we are with children, we 
must scrupulously avoid doing and saying things which 
will initiate harmful suggestions. On the other hand, 
we should frequently repeat the ideas which are likely to 
be the starting-point of beneficial suggestions. 

Guyau judiciously remarks ' that it is extremely fool- 
ish, when a child has done wrong, to express our censure 
*Op. cit 



EDUCATION OF CHILDEBN 313 

in the f orarof a generalization such as, ' ' What a greedy- 
boy you are; what a liar; what a naughty child." So 
doing, we tend to determine the future. The child thus 
characterized looks upon itself as a glutton, as a born 
liar, and so on, and acts accordingly. It is far better 
policy to show great surprise that so good a child, one 
habitually truthful, etc., could have to-day made you 
believe that it was a liar, when you know perfectly well 
that it is nothing of the kind. 1 

A woman teacher in Geneva, who has attended my 
lectures at the Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute, prac- 
tises on her pupils the following ingenious method of in- 
direct suggestion. Every Monday, when the week's 
work begins, she writes on the blackboard the "resolution 
of the week." In a brief phrase this summarizes and 
aims at correcting some fault in conduct or in methods 
of work which has been epidemic during the previous 
week. The children copy the formula, and collectively 
take the good resolution. The results have been gratify- 
ing. I may add that this teacher, having grasped the 
significance of the law of reversed effort, has substituted 
for the formula first used, I want to he this or that, the 
formula, 7 shall he this or that. The effects of this sub- 
stitution have been obvious. 

From the earliest years of childhood, and unceasingly 
thereafter, we should, in word and deed, watch over the 
suggestions made to the child mind, and above all should 

1 Cf . Froebel : " We have to recognize that in many cases tht 
teacher has himself made the child ill-conducted and vicious b> 
attributing to it a bad intention in the committing of actions 
which were indeed regrettable, but which the child performed 
without realizing their true bearing, performed through lack of 
foresight, through heedlessness, or through want of judgment." 



314 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

we be careful to avoid making any harmful suggestions. 
American manuals contain excellent observations on this 
subject. For instance, Herbert Parkyn writes: 

"Asa rule, parents pay little attention to the nurses 
they employ to look after their children. They employ 
Mary or Jane because she seems kind-hearted and can be 
hired cheap because ignorant — too ignorant, as a rule, 
to fill positions in which more money can be earned. 

" Kindness is not all that is required to make a good 
nurse for a child; and if parents could fully realize a 
nurse's influence on their children they would employ 
only a speaker of good English, a woman with charming 
manners and good principles — a woman, in fact, who 
possesses the qualities they would like to see developed in 
their children. A nurse of this kind is cheap at any 
price. I venture to say that the time is not far distant 
when there will be regular training schools established 
for nurses for children, and that these nurses when 
properly qualified will draw larger salaries than the 
trained nurses from our hospitals. When this time 
comes, the training of the children who are to be candi- 
dates, subsequently, for the presidency of the republic, 
will not be left to ignorant Mary or Jane. If a nurse 
is to be employed at all, it will be a nurse who can give 
the child the best influences during the time he is re- 
ceiving his first suggestions — the most impressionable 
time of a man's whole life. 

"Not long ago I was riding in the same railway coach 
with a mother and her little girl. The child was sitting 
in the seat opposite to her mother, riding with her back 
towards the engine. Suddenly the mother said to her : 

" 'Charlotte, come here and sit beside me. It will 
make you sick if you ride backward.' 



EDUCATION OF CHILDREN 315 

"A suggestion like this placed in the mind of a child 
is sufficient to influence her the rest of her life while 
riding in any class of vehicle. It will do a great deal to 
spoil her enjoyment of travelling, because she will fuss 
over securing a seat facing the direction in which she is 
travelling, and if she be forced by circumstances to ride 
backward, the autosuggestion arising from the old sug- 
gestion given by the mother will be sufficient to make her 
miserable if not actually sick. 

' ' There is no reason on earth why a person should not 
ride backward as comfortably as any other way. Still, 
I have seen women standing in a street car refuse to 
accept a seat offered them, the excuse being: 

" 'Thank you! I prefer to stand. It makes me sick 
to ride backward.' 

"Poor things, they are made miserable by a common 
superstition or a suggestion given to them in childhood ! 

"I have selected this illustration because the supersti- 
tion or belief is a very common one, but there are thou- 
sands of similar absurdities prevalent among the masses 
to make life fussy or unhappy. 

"Let us arise, then, and see what we can do by new 
autosuggestions to stamp out the old absurd notions, 
first in ourselves, and then, by precept and practice, 
endeavour to assist our fellow men to free themselves 
from their self-imposed burdens." 1 

Where health is concerned, we cannot be too careful 
about children, both as to what we say in their presence, 
and as to what we allow them to see. Not merely must 
we spare children the sight of illnesses which would 
impress their imagination; but before children even 
more than before adults we must scrupulously avoid 
"Op. cit., pp. 47-9. 



316 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

speaking of illness. We must shun the small change of 
conversation in which, when we have exhausted the 
subject of the weather, we pass on to speak of health, 
that is to say of disease. I mean the sort of talk wherein, 
having reviewed the headaches, the constipations, the 
nose-bleedings, and the toothaches, of our own interesting 
personality, we proceed to discuss the rheumatisms, the 
chronic bronchitis, and the stitches of our uncles and 
aunts, our male and female cousins, down to the twenty- 
fifth degree of family relationship. Next comes the list 
of sudden deaths or rapidly fatal illnesses in our own 
street and our own quarter of the town. And we finish 
off with philosophical conclusions in the style of Joseph 
Prudhomme and Monsieur Perrichon anent our mortal 
frailty and the numberless enemies ever on the watch 
for a chance of destroying our precious health. 

A reasonable code of good manners would forbid as 
a piece of rudeness the asking of people how they are; 
and still more the replying to such a question by saying 
that we don't feel at all well, and insisting on the fact 
with unction. Conversations of the type just described 
do harm to those who talk in this way; but, after all, 
that is their own affair. It is, however, a serious matter, 
when people speak freely of illness in the presence of 
children who are all eyes and ears to absorb what they 
see and hear. 

Everything which tends to make illness impressive — 
the solemn medical attendant who comes in a tall hat, 
the solemn medicines in variously coloured phials, and 
the like — all such pomp and circumstance should be 
removed as far as possible from the sight and hearing of 
children. It is equally important that we should hide 
from a child any anxiety we may feel as to the condition 



EDUCATION OF CHILDREN 317 

of its own health. These precepts are elementary for 
anyone who understands the suggestibility of the youth- 
ful mind. Let me quote once more from another 
American writer: 

1 ' One reason why we have such poor health is because 
we have been steeped in poor-health thought from in- 
fancy. We have been saturated with the idea that pain, 
physical suffering, and disease are a part of life ; neces- 
sary evils which cannot be avoided. We have had it so 
instilled into us that robust health is the exception and 
could not be expected to be the rule, that we have come 
to accept this unfortunate condition of things as a sort 
of fate from which we cannot get away. 

"The child hears so much sick talk, is cautioned so 
much about the dangers of catching all sorts of diseases, 
that he grows up with the conviction that physical dis- 
cords, aches, pains, all discomfort and suffering, are a 
necessary part of his existence, that at any time disease 
is liable to overtake him and ruin his happiness and 
thwart his career. 

' ' Think of what the opposite training would do for the 
child; if he were taught that health is the everlasting 
fact and that disease is but the manifestation of the 
absence of harmony ! Think what it would mean to him 
if he were trained to believe that abounding health, rich, 
full, complete, instead of sickness, that certainty instead 
of uncertainty, were his birthright! Think what it 
would mean for him to expect this during all his grow- 
ing years, instead of building into his consciousness the 
opposite, instead of being saturated with the sick thought 
and constantly being cautioned against disease and the 
danger of contracting it! "* 

1 0. S. Marden, op. cit, pp. 255-6. 



318 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

But in that case, it may be objected, we should have to 
be ever on the watch lest we should influence for evil 
the children by whom we are surrounded. Despite the 
best will in the world, we shall err in this respect a 
hundred times a day. 

Certainly we must avoid undue exaggeration concern- 
ing these inevitable errors. But for the very reason that 
such blunders will often elude our most watchful atten- 
tion, it will be well to apply to children the methods of 
suggestive therapeutics. By speech, gesture, and ex- 
ample, we may often give them good suggestions ; but we 
shall not fail, from time to time, to give them bad ones 
in addition. The role of methodical suggestion will be 
to reinforce the former and to neutralize the latter. 

In addition to the methods above described, there is 
one which is peculiarly suitable for children. It makes 
use of natural sleep, when the subconscious remains 
awake, just as it remains awake in induced sleep. Coue 
recommends parents to proceed as follows : 

"As soon as the child has gone to sleep, one of the 
parents goes very quietly into the bedroom and up to the 
bed. A hand is slowly and gently laid on the child's 
forehead. Should the child stir, and seem about to wake 
up, the parent says in a low tone, ' Sleep, go on sleeping, 
sleep soundly,' repeating the phrases until the child is 
sound asleep once more. Then the parent, still in the 
same slow and quiet tones, reiterates all the improve- 
ments desirable in the child, whether from the point of 
view of health, sleep, work, application, conduct, or the 
like. When this has been done, the parent withdraws, 
still taking the utmost care not to wake the child." 1 
1 Op. cit., p. 26. 



EDUCATION OF CHILDREN 319 

I should point out that, to be really fruitful, this simple 
method should be put in practice every evening without 
exception. Coue is in the habit of saying that a child 
should have suggestion every day, just as every day it 
has a cup of milk or a cup of cocoa for breakfast. The 
parents should make it part of their routine. In such 
conditions, the results are sometimes so remarkable that 
parents to whom I have advised the procedure have at 
the end of a few weeks told me that they were positively 
" alarmed" by the marvels that had ensued. I may add 
that if the parents set to work awkwardly at first, no 
great harm will result, since suggestion can undo what- 
ever suggestion has done. Should an error be made, it 
will be easy to correct it. 



CHAPTER EIGHT 

GENERAL METHODS OF APPLICATION 

Induced suggestion, as described in this work, is suscep- 
tible of very wide applications. It is upon these that 
we wish to insist in conclusion. 

1. From the point of view of the operators, it can be 
generalized in this sense, that the method can be en- 
trusted to practically everyone. 

This is possible, in the first place, because it is free 
from the dangers so frequently ascribed to it. In essence, 
it is in no respects the taking possession of one individ- 
uality by another. The practitioner is not a master who 
issues orders, but a guide who makes proposals. More- 
over, only in connection with induced sleep could there 
be any reason to dread that such a state of dependence 
might arise; but we have learned that, in the great 
majority of instances, induced sleep is superfluous. 
Again, dependence is not even one of the characteristics 
of the special state we are considering, for obedience to 
the practitioner's orders, far from being always in- 
creased, is not infrequently diminished. "When depend- 
ence ensues, it would appear to arise solely out of auto- 
suggestion, as when the subject is afraid that it will 
arise. Herein we find an additional reason for generaliz- 
ing the practice and the theory of autosuggestion, to the 
end that a knowledge of the practice may be widely 
diffused, in order to destroy superstitions concerning 

320 



GENERAL METHODS OF APPLICATION 321 

hypnotism and its dangers — superstitions upon which 
such dangers as exist do actually depend. 

Yet another reason for generalizing the practice of 
induced suggestion is the simplicity of the method. The 
only requisites are the performance of a few elementary 
exercises, a moment of muscular and mental relaxation, 
in conjunction with perseverance and regularity. Thus 
without having recourse to the classical methods of 
hypnotic suggestion, we obtain results more remarkable 
than those secured by earlier hypnotists. So simple is 
the procedure, that few can fail to master it. For the 
rest, it will not bear its full fruit unless we consider it as 
a training of the subject's power of autosuggestion. The 
practitioner's ideal must be that of every genuine 
teacher, which is to render the pupil capable in the end 
of doing without a teacher. Herein we see a further 
motive for rejecting the hypothesis that induced sug- 
gestion, as we advocate it, involves social dangers. If 
we admit that unconscientious suggesters may avail 
themselves of a method which tends to enslave their sub- 
jects, not to liberate them, such suggesters will not 
secure the results derivable from the method described 
in the present work, seeing that one of the essential 
principles of our method is to make the subject under- 
stand the mechanism of autosuggestion, to give the pupil 
the key. It is above all on this account that the method 
is so successful, and is able to furnish results far superior 
to those of methods based on heterosuggestion. Nor need 
this surprise us. Persons who appeal to autosuggestion 
display a fuller knowledge of the peculiarities of the 
mind, and it is by understanding and applying the laws 
of nature that we can obtain the best results. Inevitably 
in such cases there is a struggle for existence between 



322 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

the rival methods. That which produces the best results 
will survive. 

When induced suggestion, as above described, has to 
be employed for the relief of some physical ailment, the 
method is available to all. There is nothing distinctively 
medical about it, and there is no reason why it should 
remain a monopoly of medical practitioners. It can be 
used by all parents and by all educationists for the bene- 
fit of their children and their pupils. Its use does not 
require specialized knowledge of medicine. This follows 
from the law of subconscious teleology. We have merely 
to suggest the idea of cure, and the subconscious makes 
it its business to discover the physiological means for 
realizing the cure, without either the operator or the 
subject requiring to know what these means are. 

2. Turning to the outlook of the subjects, we may say 
that for them also the method can be generalized; with 
the exception of a small percentage of abnormal individ- 
uals, it is suitable for everyone's use. It is applicable to 
all persons and to all ages. No temperament will prove 
permanently refractory. There are none in whom sug- 
gestion is peculiarly liable to induce unfavourable re- 
sults. 

3. Turning, finally, to consider the cases suitable for 
suggestive treatment, the possibilities of wide application 
are no less obvious. Bernheim drew a line between func- 
tional and organic maladies, but for us the limits of 
suitable cases have been greatly extended. Great num- 
bers of organic affections, even those which physical 
methods of treatment have failed to relieve, have yielded 
to the power of suggestion. In the present state of our 
knowledge it is impossible to say what are the limits of 
that power. The remarkable results secured in recent 



GENERAL METHODS OF APPLICATION 323 

years have completely upset the ideas formerly enter- 
tained, and we have a right to expect yet further 
advances. The inference is that suggestion may be tried 
and ought to be tried in every case. 

Nay more. We are justified in affirming that sug- 
gestive treatment will at least give some relief in every 
case in which the patient remains conscious. Let us 
suppose, for the sake of argument, that there is some 
organic illness in which suggestion is absolutely power- 
less. If the patient's mind be dominated by the idea that 
he is suffering from such an illness, there will inevitably 
ensue (above all if the illness be attended by pain) a 
spontaneous suggestion which will aggravate the morbid 
state. Attention, mingled with emotion, returns despite 
itself to the idea of illness, in everyone who knows him- 
self to be ill, and still more in anyone who actually 
feels himself to be ill. Suggestion is an inevitable sequel. 
The consequence is that in every actual case of illness 
there are two elements, a primary element which is the 
direct issue of the malady, and a secondary element 
which is the outcome of autosuggestion. Now if, by 
hypothesis, the primary element be rebellious to suggest- 
ive treatment, the secondary element cannot fail to be 
amenable to suggestive treatment. Hence suggestive 
treatment will bring relief in all cases. 

We may add that even in cases for which the use of 
physical methods of treatment is regarded as indispensa- 
ble or advantageous, there will still be plenty of scope for 
suggestive treatment as an auxiliary. Suggestion can 
make it easier for the patient to take distasteful medi- 
cines; it can help to overcome the undesirable effects of 
certain drugs ; it can be used to induce anaesthesia when 
painful manipulations and operations are necessary. 



324 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

I do not wish to advise every doctor to make a sys- 
tematic use of direct suggestion. When a medical adviser 
proposes the use of suggestion, the patient may accept 
the method with very little confidence in the result. On 
the other hand, when a patient spontaneously applies to 
a specialist in suggestion, he probably does so, in the 
great majority of instances, because at bottom he ex- 
pects satisfactory results. In such conditions the soil is 
favourable, and there is a much better chance of complete 
success. The patient consulting a doctor who does not 
usually practise as a suggester, expects a prescription, 
and ipso facto has some confidence in this prescription. 
The doctor must take advantage of such a state of mind, 
and must use the prescription as the vehicle for indirect 
suggestion. Coue, with his customary psychological 
acumen, explains the matter as follows : 

1 'If a doctor, after examining his patient, writes a 
prescription and hands it over without comment, the 
drugs thus ordered are not likely to do much good. But 
when the practitioner explains that this medicine or that 
must be taken in such or such conditions and it will 
produce such or such effects, the results thus described 
will rarely fail to occur. ... In my opinion, when- 
ever a patient consults a doctor, the latter should always 
order some drug or other, even if drugs should not be 
really indicated. For the ordinary patient goes to see 
a doctor in the expectation that the doctor will prescribe 
a drug which will cure. Only in exceptional eases does 
the patient know that hygienic measures are of the first 
importance, that he will be cured by following a regi- 
men. These seem to him trifling matters. What he 
wants is a bottle of medicine. 

" Should the doctor merely prescribe a regimen and 



GENERAL METHODS OF APPLICATION 325 

fail to order any medicine, the patient is likely to be 
discontented. He will be apt to say to himself that 
since he has not been given any medicine he has wasted 
his time. Very often he will seek other advice. I con- 
sider, therefore, that the doctor should always prescribe 
some medicine for his patient. He should avoid ordering 
advertised specifics, whose chief value is derived from 
the very fact of wide advertisement. He should write 
his own prescriptions, for the patient will have far more 
confidence in these than in X's pills or Y's powders, 
which can be bought from any druggist without a pre- 
scription. ' ' a 

In this manner suggestion can be methodically em- 
ployed without the patient being aware of the fact. A 
knowledge of the methods of indirect suggestion is in- 
valuable to educationists and to parents no less than to 
medical practitioners. "We may add that in these cases 
we depend less upon knowledge than upon tact and 
upon psychological insight. 

*Op. cit, pp. 18 and 19. 



CONCLUSION 

SUGGESTION AND THE WILL 

Suggestion, therefore, is nothing more than autosugges- 
tion. It is an active process which goes on in the interior 
of the individual, and whose starting-point is an idea. If 
we consider these characters alone, we may be inclined 
to confound suggestion with the will. But whereas a 
voluntary act is one of which consciousness is aware, 
the mechanism of a suggested act remains essentially 
subconscious. With this difference in character there is 
associated a practical difference. Suggestion (autosug- 
gestion) does not bear its full fruit except on condition 
that it be not confounded with the will. 

In the psychology of the schools it is customary to 
distinguish three types of mental activity : instinct, habit, 
and the will. Suggestion is not reducible to any of these 
categories. It is an activity sui generis, and must hence- 
forward be allotted its place in psychology side by side 
with the other three. Neither theoretically nor prac- 
tically is it less important than these. 

Suggestion enables us to control something within our 
organism which is independent of the action of the will, 
something to which we can never hope to issue direct 
commands. We thus reacquire a privilege which, ac- 
cording to Delbceuf ,* we originally possessed in an earlier 

^elboeuf, De l'origine des effets curatifs de l'hypnotisme, 
Bulletin Academie Royale de Belgique, 1887. 

326 



CONCLUSION: SUGGESTION AND WILL 327 

stage of evolution. In those days the living being was 
fully aware of all that went on within. Owing to divi- 
sion of labour, its attention was increasingly directed 
outwards, and the supervision of the inner world was 
left to the subconscious. However this may be, sug- 
gestion seems to reestablish the supervision, to reconquer 
a realm lost in the course of evolution, and to reconquer 
it without any detriment to subsequent gains. For 
whereas the will has no power to promote the develop- 
ment of suggestion, this latter, opening a path to the 
very centre of our being, can act on all our functions 
and all our faculties, and can promote the development 
of the will itself. 

Suggestion, like the will, is a mode of activity domi- 
nated by a teleological principle; it represents a con- 
tinuous adaptation of means to the attainment of a 
desired end. We can indicate the kinship between the 
will and suggestion and can simultaneously emphasize 
the difference between the two by saying that the tele- 
ology of the will is conscious whereas the teleology of 
suggestion is subconscious. 1 

The trend of contemporary psychology is to seek in 
the mind, at a lower level than that occupied by the 
fully conscious faculties, other forms of mental life which 
are deeper and less conspicuous. 

In this respect, two contemporary movements are 
peculiarly significant. 

instinct likewise works towards an end. But instinct, ac- 
cording to Hartmann's definition, is the conscious means for an 
unconscious (subconscious) end. Suggestion, on the other hand, 
is the subconscious means for a conscious end. The contrast 
is stated in general terms, finer shades being ignored. 



328 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

In the affective sphere, Freud and the psychoanalysts 
have emphasized the existence of affective complexes, of 
sentiments and tendencies, belonging to the realm of the 
subconscious, and unceasingly determining our actions 
without our being aware of the fact. Psychoanalysis, 
bringing them to light, enables us to gain control over 
them, and thus to escape their tyranny. 

On the other hand, in the representative sphere, Berg- 
son has founded his philosophy upon the distinction be- 
tween intelligence and intuition. The latter slumbers in 
the depths of our being. It seems to possess much of the 
knowledge which is of the greatest importance to life. 
By the study of intuition we are able to solve certain 
problems which we might never have been able to solve 
on purely intellectualist lines. \ Without pausing to con- 
sider the metaphysical consequences which Bergson 
draws from this distinction, let us take it as it stands, 
considering it purely from the psychological outlook, 
from which we think it is hardly open to objection. 

Finally, the New Nancy School embodies a movement 
parallel to the two just named, but a movement in the 
active sphere. " In this field, by the very nature of things, 
the investigator is primarily led towards action rather 
than towards theory. Such was the path followed by 
Coue. Hitherto the New Nancy School has failed to be- 
come aware of the true psychological significance and of 
the vast bearing of its own affirmations. Suggestion 
(autosuggestion) is to the will what the complex is to the 
sentiment and what intuition is to intelligence. 

The three foregoing doctrines, mutually complemen- 
tary, agree in indicating that in all the spheres of the 
psyche there exist deep and hidden strata. Far from 



CONCLUSION: SUGGESTION AND WILL 329 

being inferior in point of value to the superficial strata, 
the deeper strata frequently yield us fruits which could 
never be secured from the surface consciousness. 

Thus by three independent and parallel routes, con- 
temporary psychology discloses the subconscious, and 
makes available its precious stores of mineral wealth. 
Coue, like Freud and Bergson, prefers to speak of the 
" unconscious' ' rather than of the " subconscious/ ' 
choosing the former term precisely because he wishes 
to emphasize his view that the consciousness in ques- 
tion is not to be regarded as inferior to the superficial 
consciousness. 

Furthermore, the term "unconscious" conveys the 
idea that the deeper psychological processes appear to 
be more or less independent one of another; that they 
seem to be dissociated; that they do not, as does the 
superficial consciousness, constitute a synthesis centring 
in the ego (the idea of synthesis being expressed by the 
prefix "con"). On the other hand, the term "uncon- 
scious" is inconvenient because it applies equally well 
to purely physiological processes, to reflex action, to me- 
chanical responses to stimuli. If we employ it, we have 
always to specify when we are speaking of a psycho- 
logical unconscious. But in my opinion the term "sub- 
conscious" can be precisely defined as the psychological 
unconscious. The word is already current in psychol- 
ogy, and if it be clearly defined no confusion can possibly 
arise. 1 

*It is essential that writers on these topics should come to a 
definite understanding in regard to the use of these words. 
Bernheim, in a recently published work (Automatisme et sug- 
gestion, Alcan, Paris, 1917), is frequently the victim of a con- 
fusion in terms. He identifies the " subconscious " with a " vague 



330 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

We may say, then, that psychoanalysis, intuitionism 
(considered apart from all metaphysics), and the teach- 
ings of the New Nancy School, contribute to the same 
general movement. These three doctrines enable us to 
enter the subconscious, open ways for us into the hidden 
recesses of our being. Thereby they greatly enlarge our 
knowledge of ourselves, disclosing the causes of what we 
have hitherto known only as effects. Since knowledge is 
power, they increase our command of life. At the same 
time they meet the wishes of William James, who re- 
gretted the way in which we live only on the surface of 
things. Henceforward we can penetrate into the depths, 
and we are entitled to expect great results from these 
new possibilities. 

The parallelism might be carried still further, espe- 
cially as regards the distinction between the views of 
Bergson and the views of Coue. Just as the organic con- 
trol rendered possible by suggestion seems to be the re- 
covery of an ancient heritage which had been lost in the 
course of evolution, so the Bergsonian intuition is at its 
deepest roots identified with instinct. Intuition is not 
so much to be won by a new conquest as to be recon- 
quered. If we have lost it in the past, it is because our 
attention has been more and more attracted by the needs 
of outward activity, demanding new adaptations. 

Intelligence constitutes one of these adaptations. It 

consciousness"; whereas he regards the "unconscious" as a 
priori "non psychological," and identifies it with "automatism." 
The consequence is that the phenomena of suggestion, not being 
automatic, are simply " conscious," and by very definition cannot 
be unconscious. By this paradox experiment is falsified and 
observation is distorted. 



CONCLUSION: SUGGESTION AND WILL 331 

is the mode of knowledge which is applicable to crude 
matter, whereas, intuition is the mode of knowledge which 
is applicable to life. Intuition is the primitive mode of 
knowledge, from which intelligence is derived by adap- 
tation. That is why we can never arrive at intuition by 
way of intelligence, whereas we can pass from intuition 
to intelligence by following the path of differentiation 
which has been pursued by evolution. 

Now there are identical relationships between sugges- 
tion and the will. 

If this be so, we may sum up the distinction by saying 
that the will is the normal mode of acting on matter, on 
the external world, whereas suggestion is the normal 
mode of acting on ourselves qua living beings. Experi- 
ence confirms the hypothesis. 

When we wish to act on the physical world we must 
seek to know the laws which regulate its mechanism, we 
must endeavour to elucidate the unending sequences of 
cause and effect. We are compelled to understand, con- 
sciously to grasp, the nexus of causality. The will, fully 
conscious, is at work. 

But when we come to act on ourselves we can employ 
a very different method, that of suggestion. Here the 
saying, Who wills the end wills the means, is no longer 
valid. It suffices to think the end. Everything then 
ensues as if our subconscious were familiar with all the 
details of our physical and mental organism, and as if it 
could deduce from this knowledge the means necessary 
for realizing the proposed end. Here the end which has 
to be attained appears to find its own means, just as the 
poem which is to be born gives rise in the mind of the 
poet to the words fit for its expression. 

But if we are living beings in whom teleology tends to 



332 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

realize itself spontaneously, we are none the less parts 
of the material world, the world where mechanism reigns, 
Consequently, an action analogous to that which we exer- 
cise on the physical world, remains legitimate. Such an 
action is exerted in the ordinary practice of medicine. 

It follows that medicine and suggestion are comple- 
mentary, like a couple of forces acting in contrary direc- 
tions and therefore unable to rival one another. Or we 
may say that the first acts from without, being centripe- 
tal. The second acts from within, being centrifugal. 
Though each taken alone is doubtless inadequate, by 
uniting they can realize the fable of the blind man and 
paralytic. 

Suggestive practice, therefore, must not be looked 
upon as a chapter of medicine, any more than suggestion 
must be regarded as a special case of will. The two be- 
long to distinct categories. Suggestive practice is not 
properly speaking a therapeutic method. With the work 
of the New Nancy School it passes from the medical to 
the pedagogical sphere. It does not so much consist of 
a descriptive science as of an education or reeducation of 
certain mental aptitudes and habits which human beings 
have been tending more and more to lose. 

Modern times have been characterized by the conquest 
of the material world. It is therefore natural that, when 
we turn back to man, we should retain the habits of 
thought we have contracted in our prolonged intercourse 
with the physical universe. Such is the invariable 
method of conventional medicine. Thereby, however, it 
reaches no more than a part of the human being. It 
moves from without inwards, though there is just as 
much need that it should radiate from the centre to the 



CONCLUSION: SUGGESTION AND WILL 333 

periphery. It has a wide knowledge of the effect of 
physical agents upon man, but we still have to learn the 
reaction of the human mind upon physical agents. 

The work of modern science is a great achievement, 
but it is incomplete. For its completion a certain change 
is necessary both in outlook and method. As the philos- 
opher Spir has well put it, "We are masters of nature 
externally alone, inwardly we are nature's slaves." 
Studying only too well all that surrounds us, we have 
forgotten our own personality, and now or never is the 
moment when we must put into practice the Socratic 
maxim ' ' Know thyself. \ ' The doctrine of the New Nancy 
School, in conjunction with other doctrines of contem- 
porary psychology, enables us to make a great advance 
in this knowledge. 



GLOSSARY 

Acceptation. The acceptance of an idea by the sub- 
conscious. 

Acceptivity. The readiness with which the subconscious 
accepts an idea. (Readiness to accept heterosug- 
gestion.) 

Autosuggestion. The subconscious realization of an 
idea in more or less complete independence of 
heterosuggestion. 

Censor, The, or The endopsychic censor. A figurative 
impersonation to denote the sum of repressive forces. 

Collection. The state of outcropping of the subcon- 
scious resulting from a willed (but not voluntary) 
relaxation. (See Relaxation, below.) 

Complex. A group of emotionally tinged ideas partially 
or entirely repressed. (Usual Definition of Psy- 
choanalysts.) An integration of images, memories, 
sentiments, conscious and unconscious reasonings, 
interlacing one with another, and to all appearance 
inextricably intertangled (Baudouin). 

Concentration. A state of autohypnosis and of persist- 
ent contention with one idea, the autohypnosis hav- 
ing been induced by the lulling influence of the idea 
on the mind. 

Contention. Is a psychological equivalent of attention, 
minus effort. It is the state we attain to by means 
of collection (q.v.). Some writers term this state 
concentration, but see Concentration. 

Derivation. See Sublimation. 

Fascination. The capturing of the attention by some 
sensory phenomenon. 

334 



GLOSSARY 335 

Fixed Idea. The ultimate degree of obsession. 

Foreconscious. See Preconscious. 

Hallucination. An imaginary sensation, one to which 
no objective reality corresponds. 

Hallucination by Compromise. A hallucination sug- 
gested by the illusory interpretation of an objective 
reality. 

Heterosuggestion. The subconscious realization of an 
idea suggested by another. 
Also, the act of suggesting an idea to another. 

Hypnosis. A general name for states of outcropping of 
the subconscious produced by immobilization of the 
attention, and for states of somnolence which are 
distinguishable from ordinary drowsiness by their 
mode of production. 

Ideoreflex Process. The process by which an idea real- 
izes itself or tends to realize itself in action. (It is 
to this that Baudouin limits the signification of the 
term suggestion.) 

Obsession. The capturing of the attention by some- 
thing purely subjective, an image, a memory, or an 
idea. 

Outcropping of the Subconscious. The invasion of the 
normal waking consciousness by uprushes from the 
subconscious. 

Passivity. See Acceptivity. 

Preconscious. A region of the mind containing memory 
traces which can only be aroused by exceptionally 
strong stimuli or by special effort. (This region is 
transitional between consciousness and the subcon- 
scious. Usually spoken of by psychoanalysts as the 
" foreconscious. ") 

Relaxation. The release of mental tension, the cessation 
of attention and the suspension of inhibition, which 
favours the outcropping of the subconscious. This 
relaxation is the outcome of a decision of the will, 
but a decision in virtue of which the will abdicates 



336 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 

for a season. " Relaxation ' ' is precisely this abdi- 
cation. 

Repression. The keeping from consciousness of mental 
processes that would be painful to it. 

Schemata. Fragmentary or simplified equivalents of 
sensations, emotions, sentiments, memories, images 
and other mental states. 

Subconscious. A region of the mind normally inaccess- 
ible to consciousness. (Usually spoken of by psy- 
choanalysts as the " unconscious. ' ' See pp. 329 and 
330.) 

Sublimation. The employment of energy belonging to 
a primitive instinct in a new and derived, i. e. non- 
primitive, channel. E. g. the use of sexual energy 
in " intellectual' ' love or creative artistic work 
(Tansley). The process of enlisting the uncon- 
scious in the work that is available for social pur- 
poses (Lay). 

Suggestibility. Readiness to realize a suggestion. 

(In Baudouin's use of the term — in more or less 
complete independence of heterosuggestion.) 
Readiness to realize an autosuggestion. 

Suggestion. The subconscious realization of an idea. 
(See also Ideoreflex Process.) 

Transference. The mental substitution, for an abstract 
emotional object, of some visible object which can 
symbolically represent it. 

Unconscious. See Subconscious. 



INDEX 



Abramowsky, 229, 230, 231, 291 

Absent Treatment, 105 

Acceptation, 136, 240, 287 et seq. 

Acceptivity, 287-294, 305, 312 

Active Suggestions, see Sug- 
gestions, motor 

Affect, see Emotion 

Affective Rapport, 29, 242; see 
also Rapport 

Affective Suggestions, see Sug- 
gestions, affective 

Ailments, talk little about, 139 

Alcohol and Alcoholism, see 
Drunkenness 

Amedee, Case of, 60-62, 96, 
100, 113 

Amnesia, 49, 51, 135, 296 
Treatment of, 206, 207 

Ampere, 190 

Anaesthetic Suggestion, 191, 192, 
212, 324 

Animal Magnetism, 105, 191, 
306 

Antagonistic Reducers, 53, 55 

Aphonia, 282, 283 

Application, see Methods 

Aptitudes, wholesome, to be 
encouraged, 311 

Arago, 271 

Archimedes, 189 

Archives de Psychologie, 59, 
62, 286, 295 

Ariadne, 80 

Art- 
revelatory Character of, 155 
Suggestion in Artistic Ap- 
preciation, 82 

ArTaui/T, 108, 109 

Artistic Education, see Educa- 
tion 

Artistic Inspiration, see Inspir- 
ation 

Association Test, ill 

Asthma, 107, 108 



Attention — 
and muscular Effort, 154, 161, 

170 
concentrated, Law formu- 
lated, 134 
Immobilization of the, 173- 
181, 296, 297, 298, 301, 306 
Improvement of, 208, 209 
its Relation to Suggestion, 

30, 31, 144 
Muscles of, 155, 161, 170 
never stable, 146 
psychological Equivalent for, 
165-172 
A-U-M', 179 
Autohypnosis, 151, 173-181,305 

and Energy, 229-234 
Automatic Writing, see Writ- 
ing 
Automatism, 246 
Automatisme psychologique, L ', 

n 4 

Automatisme et suggestion, 329 
Autonomy of the Subject, 237- 

247 
Autopsychoanalysis, 163 
Autosuggestion, see also Sug- 
gestion 
Autosuggestion — 
and Disease, 65 
and the Will, 148, 149, 106, 

229, 243 
and Moral Energy, 227, 234, 

310 
and Neurasthenia, 43 
a primary Need in Child 

Education, 310 et seq. 
conditional, 121-127, 128 
criticism of the term, 11 
distinguished from Hetero- 

suggestion, 30, 32 
distinguished from voluntary 

Effort, 43 
erroneous Ideas, 211 



337 



338 



INDEX 



Autosuggestion — continued 
general Rules for its Prac- 
tice, 182-203 
immediately before and after 

Sleep, 169, 172 
in relation to natural sleep, 

128-133 
its universality in Disease, 

322, 323 
not to be confused with vol- 
untary Effort, 150 
of Impotence, 43, 44, 45 
Phases of, 287 
Philosophy of, 326-333 
Rise of the Doctrine, 7-10, 

15, 16 
Simplicity of, 320 et seq. 
Summary of Rules, 195, 196 
spontaneous, generally, see 

Suggestion, spontaneous 
spontaneous, favored by nat- 
ural Sleep, 138, 139 
the Prototype of all Sugges- 
tion, 26, 122, 237 
uncontrolled, as Cause of 

Illness, 39, 40 
why overlooked, 37~39 
Autosuggestion volontaire, Pre- 
cis d', 149, 183, 184, 196, 197, 
227 
Auxiliary Emotion, see Emo- 
tion 
Auxiliary Emotion, Law of, 
see Emotion 

Baade, 295 

Backwards, Travelling, see 

Travelling 
Baguette divinatoire, De la, 

etc., 30 
Baudouin, 8, 10, 12, 62, 161, 

273 
Beads, 177 
Beaunis, 228, 303 
Belgium, A New School in, 12 
Belligerents' Psychosis, 210 
Benoist-Hanappier, 220, 221 
Bergson, 77, 154, 165, 174, 328, 

329 
Bergsonianism, 13, 152 



Bemeeon, 293, 297 
Bernheim, 10, 15, 25, 52, 65, 

83, 237, 244, 271, 273, 300, 

322 
Bertrand, 7, 8 
Binet, 27, 28, 290, 291, 292 

BlRAN, I45 

Birthmarks, 108 
Boirac, 117, 293 
Bonjour, 23, 25, 26, 29, 106 
Bonnet, 149, 151, 183, 189, 196, 

198, 200, 227 
Bosc de Veze, 178 
Bovet, 76, 97, 130 
Braid, 7, 8, 198, 297 
Bramweee, 8 
Breathing Exercises, 200, 201, 

202 
Breuer, 16 
Brunetiere, 88 
Bui, Case of, 303 
Bulletin of the Societe lorraine 

de psychologie appliquee, 17, 

108, 114, 233, 275, 278, 283, 

299 
Bulletin Ecole de Nancy, see 
Bulletin of the Societe lor- 
raine, etc. 

Cabanas, 118 

Career, Choice of, 98, 09, 311 

Case Histories, 271-286 

Catalepsy, 300 

Catarrh, 223 

Causality of Thought, 331 

Censor, the endopsychic, 39, 62, 
98, 112; see also Repression 

Chair Exercise, 257, 258 

Character as a Bundle of men- 
tal Habits, 96 

Charcot, 9 

Charm, 151 

Charming of Warts, 25, 106 

Chdtiments, Les, 56, 80 

ChevrEue, 30, 248, 249, 255, 
256, 257, 264, 291, 312 

Childbirth, influenced by Sug- 
gestion, 23-25, 109, III, 274- 
275 



INDEX 



339 



Children contrasted with Ad- 
ults, 155 
Child's Unconscious Mind, The, 

II 
Choice of Career, see Career 
Chronique medicate, 109 
Cinemas, suggestive influence 

of, 88 
Clairvoyants, 139 

Cl<APAREDE, 295, 300-303 

Ceaparede et Baade, 295, 303 

Clara d'Ellebeuse, 88 

Cleptomania, 92, 309 

Clothing, suggestive influence 
of, 74 

Coefficient — 
of Amelioration, normal, 115 
of Suggestibility, 292 

Cold in Head, 223 

Collection, 160-164 
defined, 163 
(Levy), 151 

Collective Suggestion, see Sug- 
gestion, collective 

Combative Instinct, 76 

Complex, 98, 99, 109-111, 130- 
131, 283-286, 327 m 

Concentrated Attention, see At- 
tention 

Concentrated Attention, Law 
of, see Attention 

Concentration, 151 
defined, 180 ; see also Conten- 
tion 
Practice of, 190; see also 
Contention 

Concrete Results, 271-286 

Condieeac, 38 

Conditional Suggestion and 
Autosuggestion, see Autosug- 
gestion, conditional; Sugges- 
tion, conditional 

Conduct of Life, The, 101 

Congress, Psychological, 17 

Consciousness, subliminal, 8 

Consumption, see Tuberculosis 

Contagion, suggestive, 139, 264 

Contemplations, Les, 55 

Contention, 165-172, 296, 302, 
304, 305 



Contention — continued 
defined, 169, 171 
Practice of, 171, 172, 189 

Contracture, 228 
Experiments in, 259-265 
Experiments, their Draw- 
backs, 264 

Control of undesirable 
Thoughts, 139 

Coprophagia, 86 

Corns, 7, 11, 15, 16, 42-44, 68, 
105, 107, 119, 123, 138, 147, 
148, 150, 185, 186, 187, 190- 
196, 219, 220, 225, 231, 237, 

238, 245, 246, 256, 259, 261- 
263, 271, 274-277, 280, 282- 
284, 299, 300, 307, 318, 319, 
324, 328, 329 

Cough, 220 

Countersuggestion, 131, 146, 
193, 194, 204, 205, 211, 225, 

239, 282, 283, 284 
Counting, 177 
Cradle Song, 270 
Creative Formula, 205 
Creative Power of Suggestion, 

89 
Crowd Psychology, 70, 76 
Cumberlandism, 255 
Curative Suggestions, 265-270 



Dangers of Hypnotism, 242, 

320 
Darwin, 108 
Death from Autosuggestion, 

119, 120 
Debauchery, 209 
DfjERiNE, 246 
Deebo^uE, 326 
De I'origine des effets curatifs 

de Vhypnotisme, 326 
Derivation, see Sublimation 
Dermographism, 118 
Determinism, 131 

Autosuggestion a Key to, 103, 
A i5Q A 
Dharana, 178 
Disbelief in simple Methods, 

199 



340 



INDEX 



Disease, Universality of Auto- 
suggestion in, 322, 323 

Discours sur les passions de 
I' amour, 87 

Distraction, 160, 161 

Dreaming, probably continuous 
during Sleep, 166, 167 

Dreams — 
as Satisfaction of repressed 

Impulses, 79, in 
of religious Devotees, 129 
Regulation of, 224 

Drever, 136 

Drowsiness, see Somnolence 

Drug Habits, see Tobacco, 
Opium, etc. 

Drug Treatment, 324, 325 

Drunkenness, 86, 91, 92, 209 

Dubois, 246, 273 

Duchatei, and WarcoixiER, 
117, 118 

Dysmenorrhcea, 126 

Education and Heredity, 309 
Education — 

artistic, 162-164 

in Autosuggestion, 243, 244, 
248, et seq. 

of the Imagination, 149, 163 

of the Outcropping, 160-164 
Education et Heredite, 309 
Education pratique de la vol- 

onte, 149, 185, 186, 189, 190, 

196, 197 
Education rationelle de la vol- 

onte, U, 52 
Education, Suggestion in, 11 
Educational applications, 11, 12, 

17, 292, 293, 300-319, 332, 333 
Educational Psychology, 136 
Effets curatifs de Vhypnotisme, 

De Vorigine des f 326 
Effort- 
Law of Least, 54 

Maine de Biran's Analysis, 

145 
reversed, see Reversed Effort 
voluntary, comprises both 

Action and Reaction, 145, 

146 



Effort — continued 
voluntary, distinguished from 
Autosuggestion, 43 

Ellebeuse, 88 
Emerson, ioi 
Emmerich, 1 18 
Emotion — 

a crucial Factor of Sugges- 
tion, 45, 96, 105, 106, 144 

and the Outcropping of the 
Subconscious, 157, 158 

auxiliary, Law of, formu- 
lated, 134 

contagious, 71, 76 

Control of, by Suggestion, 
214, 215 

peripheral Theory of, 71-76 

the Object of Suggestion, 71 
Energizing Influence of Sug- 
gestion in Children, 310 
Energy- 
moral, and autosuggestion, 
227-234 

vital, and Autohypnosis, 229- 
234 
En marge de Nietzsche, 221 
Enteritis, 277, 278 
Epidemics — 

of Despair, 82 

of patriotic Fervour, 88 

of religious Fervour, 88 

of Suicide, 82 
Erziehung der Kinder, Hypno- 

tische, 309 
Essai sur les fondements de la 

psychologie, 145 ■ 
Ether Habit, 92 
Etudes experimentales sur la 

volonte, 229 
Eusebius, 130 
Evangelicae Praeparationis, 

130 
Examination Terror, 135 
Example, Influence of, 139, 

264; see also Imitation 
Examples and Special Rules, 

204-226 
Exercises — 

Breathing, 200, 201, 202, 203 



INDEX 



341 



Exercises — continued 
in Autosuggestion, 182-226, 

228 
preliminary, in induced Sug- 
gestion, 248-258 
Expectation as Factor in Hyp- 
notism and Suggestion, 9, 96 
Expression of Sentiment as a 
relief, 79 

Fairy Tales, 162 
Faith Cures, 105, 144 
Falling Backwards and For- 
wards, Exercise, 255, 256, 

257, 258 
Fascination, 41, 42 

mental, 42 
Fashion, 88 
Fatigue, 213, 228 
Fear — 

rousing Instinct to Conceal- 
ment, 136 

rousing Instinct to Flight, 
136 
Fechner, 148 

Fiat Vita, pereat Veritas, 211 
Finding and Seeking, 78, 87 
Fixation of the Attention, 173 

et seq., 206 
Fixed Idea, 43 
FivOURNOY, 94, 155 
Fluid, magnetic, 191 
Foods, our Taste in, influenced 

by Suggestion, 84 
Foreconscious, see Precon- 

scious 

FoREE, 26, 122, l67, 208, 210, 
237, 271, 300 

Fouieeee, 135 

Freedom through Autosugges- 
tion, 103 

Freud, 16, 09, 120, 328 

Freudianism, see Psychoanaly- 
sis 

Froebei,, 313 

Futurism, 82 

Galvanometric Tests, 229, 230 
Games, imitative rather than 
spontaneous, 311, 312 



GiiXET, 108 

Gillet, Case of, 282-283 

Gleaners, The, 54 

Goethe, 79, 211, 215 

Goodhart, 8 

Guerisons miraculeuses mod- 
ernes, 25 

Guerre, La psychanalyse, et la, 
210 

GUYAU, 309, 312 

Habit, 91-93, 216, 217 et seq. 
Habit- Spasm, 220 
Hallucination, 53-63, 94, 237, 

238 

by Compromise, 53-63, 122 

by Repression, 59 

by Transfer, 57, 63 

during Hypnosis, 54 

fragmented, 65 

negative, 237 

transparent, 238 
Hanappier, Benoist, 221 
Hartmann, 154, 327 
Healers, unofficial, 8, 105, 144 
Hearsays, 52 
Hecate, 129 
Heidenhain, 9 
Heredite, Education et, 309 
Heredity, Education and, 309 
Heredity — 

Simulation of, no 

Superstition of, no 
Hesnard, 59 
Heterosuggestion — 

curative, Forel's Views, 122 

distinguished from Autosug- 
gestion, 30, 32 

Phases of, 287 

practiced in natural Sleep, 
300 

superseded by Autosugges- 
tion, 222, 223, 224, 225, 244 
Hindustan, Yogis of, 178, 179, 

200 
Horn, 309 

Hugo, 55, 56, 58, 80, 97, 209 
Hunger, 212 
Hypnose, Suggestion und 

Brziehung, 301, 309 



342 



INDEX 



Hypnosis — 

defined, 175 et seq. 

Production of, 297 et seq., 
306, 307 

profound, 237-247, 286 

psychological Characters of, 
300 

slight, 270 

Symptoms of, 241 

Theory of, 295-308 
Hypnotische Ersiehung der 

Kinder, 309 
Hypnotism — 

Coue's earlier Practice, 138 

as the Infantile Stage of 
Psychotherapeutics, 104 

its dissociation from Mysti- 
cism and Superstition, 7, 

15 
is Suggestion (Bernheim), 

237, 298 
Marvels of, 222, 242 
pathological theory of, 9 
psychological theory of, 9 
Hypnotism (Bramwell), 8 
Hypnotism (Forel), 26, 237,238 
Hypnotism, Braid on, 8, 297 
Hypotaxia, 244 
Hysteria, 9, 211, 228 
Hystero-epilepsy, 9 

Idea — 

defined, 22, 47 

spontaneous Realization of, 
30 
Ideomotor Force, 135, 136 
Ideoreflex Power, 30, 31, 255 

Education of, 32 

Process, 287 
Illness — 

Pomp and Circumstance, 316 ; 
see also Disease 

Sight of, 315 

Talking of, 139, 315, 316, 317 
Imaginary Ills real to the Suf- 
ferer, 89 
Imagination, 89, 163, 164, 222, 

223 
Imitation from Suggestion, 88, 

93, 97, 286, 311 



Immobilization of the Atten- 
tion, 1 73-181, 296, 297, 298, 
301, 306 

Impassibility, physical, its sug- 
gestive Influence, 75, 76 

Impossibility, 272 

Impotence, Suggestion of, 219, 
264, 265 

Impressions, maternal, 108-112 

"Improvisation," 97 

Induced Sleep, see Hypnosis 

Induced Suggestion, see Sug- 
gestion, induced 

Influence, personal, 29 

Inhibition — 
cortical, 295 

Experiments in, 259-265 
Suspension of, 156 
Initiative, Suspension of in 
profound Hypnosis, 303 

Insane, Suggestion in the, 237 

Inspiration, artistic, in the 
Work of the Subconscious, 
209, 211 

Instinct combatif, L\ 76, 97 

Instinct, defined, 327 

Instinct in Man, A Contribu- 
tion to the Psychology of 
Education, 135 

Intellection, little affected dur- 
ing profound Hypnosis, 304 

Intellectuals, German, their 
Manifesto, 211 

Intelligence, 328, 333 

Interpretation psychologique de 
I'hypnose, 301, 302, 303 

Intoxicants, see Drunkenness, 
Opium, etc. 

Intuition, 327-333 

Jacquemin, Case of, 225 

James, 71, 208, 330 

Jammes, 88 

Janet, 114, 152 

Jones, Ernest, ii 

Jones, W: H. S., 139 

Journal de psychologie normale 

et pathologique, 229 
Journal fur Psychologie und 

Neurologie, 301 



INDEX 



343 



Judgment influenced by Sug- 
gestion, 51, 52 
Juliet's Nurse, 104 

KEATINGE, 11 

Know thyself, 333 

Lange, 71 
Lateau, 118 
Laughter, 93 
Laumonier, 114 
Law — 
of Auxiliary Emotion, 134; 

see also Emotion 
of Concentrated Attention, 

134; see also Attention 
of Reversed Effort, 137, 148; 

see also Reversed Effort 
of Subconscious Teleology, 
138; see also Teleology 
Lay, 11 
Lebel, 193 

LlEBNlTZ, 296 

Lemaitre, 59 
Lenau, 155 

Leonardo da Vinci, 155 
L£vy, 52, 66, 149, 151, 169, 185, 
211 

LlEBAUET, 9, 15, 108, ISI, 271, 
300 

Love, 87 

" Luck," 103 

Lulling Influences, 1/5-179,270 

Magnetism, animal, 105, 191, 

Magnetisme animal en France, 
Du, 7 

Maine de Biran, see Biran 

Maeebranche, 33 

Manifestations fonctionelles des 
psychonevroses, Les, 246 

Manifesto of German Intel- 
lectuals, 211 

Man's Unconscious Conflict, 11 

Marden, ioi, 102, 118, 215, 221, 
317 

Martyrdom, Suggestion in, 66 

Marvels of Hypnotism, 222, 242 

Masturbation, 92, 99 



Maternal Impressions, 108-112, 
274-275 

Mathieu, 115, 116 

Medicine and Suggestion, 332 

Medicines, unpleasant, 216, 323 

Mediumistic Phenomena, 94, 95, 
155, 160 

Mediums, 139 

Memorization — 
Attention an indispensable 

Factor, 166 
Exercises in, 169, 170, 199 

Memory — ■ 

Loss of, see Amnesia 
Treatment of, 207, 208 

Mesnie, 210 

Methods of Application — 
Cases, 323-325 
general, 320-325 
Operators, 320-323 
Subjects, 320 

Metritis, 274-275 

Migraine, habitual, 126 

Millet, 54 

Mind- Wandering, 208 

Miracle of Right Thought, The, 
102, 215, 221 

Miracles de la Volonte,Les, 116 

Miraculous Cures, 105 

Misoneism, 82 

Monoideism, 168 

Montessori, 12 

Moral Energy, see Energy 

Morphine Habit, 92, 209 

Motor Images, 94 

Motor Suggestions, see Sug- 
gestions, motor 

Muscle Reading, 255 

Muscles of Attention, 155, 163, 
169 

Mutism, 278, 279, 280 

Mysticism of American Writ- 
ers on New Thought, 101 



Nail-Biting, 92, 219 
Nancy School, 9, 101, 300 
Nancy School, New, 9, 10, 11, 
13, 15, 16, 101, 105, 147, 150, 
195, 227, 246, 247, 259-270, 



344 



INDEX 



^2, 275, 308, 328, 330, 332, 

333 

Napoleon III, 80 

Napoleonic Attitude, 121, 127 

Nature, Control of, 37, 332, 333 

Negative Formulas to be 
avoided, 205, 206, 219 

Negative Hallucination, see 
Hallucination 

Nerve versus Muscle, 157, 164 

Neurasthenia, 43 ; see also Case 
Histories 

Neurocymes, 295 

Neuroses, Common, 8 

Neurypnology, 297 

New School in Belgium, A, 12 

Nietzsche, 81 

Nietzsche, En marge de, 221 

" Night brings Counsel," 132 

Nightmare, 129, 224 

Nose-Bleeding, 223 

Novels, suggestive Influence of, 
88 

Noxious Suggestions, see Sug- 
gestions, noxious 

Obsession, 42 

Occupation, see Career 

Opinions, influenced by Sug- 
gestion, 51, 52, 210, 211 

Opium Habit, 92, 209 

Ordeal— 
by Fire, 118 
by Sword, 118 

Organic Disease, Suggestive 
Treatment, 25, 26, 27 

Outcropping — 

Education of the, 160-164 
of the Subconscious, 151- 

159 , 
in Autohypnosis, 173-181 

Overnight Suggestions, Fruit- 
fulness of, 174 

Pain, Relief of, 191, 192, 212 
Panic, 71 

Panurge, Sheep of, 52, 96 
Parallelism, psychophysical, 

295, 296 
Paralysis from Fear, 135-136 



Paralysis overcome through 

, Fear, 136-144 

Parkyn, 65, 102, 146, 149, 170, 
172, 184, 199, 202, 310, 314 

Pascae, 74, 78, 81, 87 

Passes, 191, 306 

Passions, 86-90, 215, 216, 217 

Passivity, see Acceptivity 

Pasteurs et troupeaux, 55, 56 

Patent Medicines, 65, 105 

Patriotism, Suggestion in, 88 

Payot, 151 

Pendulum — 

Chevreul's, 30, 248, 249, et 
seq. to 258, 264, 265, 289, 
290, 311 
electrical, 248 
exploratory, 248 

Peripheral Theory of Emotion, 
see Emotion 

Perrichon, 316 

Personal Influence, 29 

Persuasion, 246 

Phases, see Autosuggestion, 
Heterosuggestion, Suggestion 

Phedre, 88 

Philoneism, 82 

Philosophy of Suggestion and 
Autosuggestion, 326-333 

Phobia, 72, 213, 214; see also 
Stage Fright, etc. 

Phrase, Repetition of as Lul- 
laby, 179, 180 

Phthisis, see Tuberculosis 

Physiologie des muscles et des 
nerfs, 228 

Picht, 301, 309 

Plasticity, mental, see Accep- 
tivity 

Plea of Exception, 239, 240 

Poetic Faculty, 158 

Porphyry, 130 

Posthypnotic Suggestion, see 
Suggestion 

Pott's Disease, 277 

Powerlessness, see Impotence 

Practical Rule, see Rule 

Practice, Cone's, 138, 259-270 

Praeparatio Bvangelica, 130 

Pratyahara, 178 



INDEX 



345 



Precis d' auto suggestion volon- 

taire, 149, 182, 183, 184, 189, 

196, 227 
Preconscious, 57 
Pregnancy, Simulation of, 113, 

114 
Prejudice, 200 
Premiers souvenirs, 85 
Principle, A, Meaning of Term, 

272 
Problems solved during Sleep, 

131, 132, 174, 194, 209, 305 
Profession, see Career 
Profound Hypnosis, see Hyp- 
nosis, profound 
Prophecies that bring their own 

fulfilment, 85, 119, 120, 139 
Prudhomme, 316 
Pseudoscientific Scepticism, 120, 

127 
Psychanalyse et la guerre, La, 

210 
Psychiatre, Note d'un, 210 
Psychic Science, 293 
Psychoanalyse, des nevroses et 

des psychoses, 59 
Psychoanalyse, Observation 

No. 2, 62 
Psychoanalysis, II, 16, 62, 96, 

97, 99, 103, no-113, 130, 134, 

154, 155, 163, 164, 283-286, 

312, 328, 330 
Psychoanalysis, 11 
Psychogalvanic Reflex, 229, 

230 
Psychologie inconnu, 293 
Psychologie normale et pathol- 

ogique, Journal de, 229 
Psychomecanique de Vhypno- 

tisme, Theorie, 298 
Psychonevroses et leur traxte- 

ment, Les, 246 
Psychophysical Parallelism, 

206, 297 
Psychosis, Belligerents', 210 
Psychotherapeutics, 104, 115, 

222, 271 

Quackery and Suggestion, 66, 
105 



Rabinovitch, 277 

Rapin, 24, 25 

Rapport, 29, 105, 242, 304, 305, 
306 

Rational Education of the Will, 
The, 52, 170 

Rausch, 309 

Recherches experimentales sur 
quelques processus psychiques 
simples dans un cas d' hyp- 
nose, 295, 304 

Recueillement, 163; see Collec- 
tion 

Reducers, antagonistic, 53 

Reeducation of the Will, a 
Fallacy, 149 

Reflection, meditative, 151 

Reflective Suggestion, see Sug- 
gestion, reflective 

Regis et Hesnard, 59, 98, 155 

Regret at Loss of Suffering, 
217 

Relaxation, 151-159, 161-164, 
297 

mental, a Factor of spontane- 
ous Suggestion, 96 
Practice of, 163 

Religion, Suggestion in, 88 

Renon, 114, 276 

Renouvier, 86 

Representative Suggestions, see 
Suggestion 

Repression, 39, 59, 62, no, in, 
127; see also Censor 

Reputation, Suggestive Force 
of, 263, 324, 325 

Resolution of the Week, 313, 

314 
Results, concrete, 271-286 
Reverie, 92, 154, 163, 172 
Reversed Effort, 10, 42, 92, 100, 
143-150, 170, 193, 195, 106, 
230, 241, 252, 254, 265, 313 
Law formulated by Bau- 

douin, 137 
Law formulated by Coue, 
148 
Rheumatic Pains, 7, 225, 226 
Ribot, 31, 83, 134, i-A 154, 
161 



346 



INDEX 



RlCHET, 117, 228 

Romanticism as a collective 
Crisis, 82 

Rose, 309 

Rousseau, 83 

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, Insti- 
tute, 12, 276, 280, 313 

Routinism, 199, 225, 280 

Rules for the Practice of Auto- 
suggestion — 
general, 182-203 
special, 204-226 
Summary of fundamental,i64 

Rules, practical — 

for the Control of Emotion, 

75 
for the Control of painful 
Sensation, 75, 76 



Salpetriere School, 9, 270 

Sand, 62 

Scepticism, pseudoscientific,l20, 

127 
Schemata — 

emotional, 70 

ideal (representative), 49 

sensational, 64 

sentimental, 77, 78 
Schmidt, Case of, 283 
School Children, Experiments 

in Suggestibility (Binet), 

200, 291 
Schopenhauer, 119 
Seesaw of the Attention, 173 et 

seq., 297 
Seeking and Finding, 78, 87 
Self-Control, 290 
Semon, 208 

Senility of the Larynx, 282 
Sensation — _ 

affective, its suggestive in- 
fluence, 64-69 

inhibited by Suggestion, 62 

Suggested, 52; see also Hal- 
lucination 
Sensations, TraitS des, 38 
Sentimentalism, typical in each 

Epoch, 81, 82 
Sentiments, 77-83. 215 



Sentry Duty of preventive 
Countersuggestion, 211, 289, 
290 
Shakespeare, 155 
Sheep of Panurge, 52, 96 
Simple Methods, Disbelief in, 

Simplicity of Autosuggestion, 

321 et seq. 
Simulation — 

of Pregnancy, 113-114 

unconscious, 282, 283 
Sleep- 
induced, see Hypnosis, pro- 
found 

natural, in relation to Sug- 
gestion and Autosugges- 
tion, 128, 133, 138, 139, 
224 

natural, contrasted with Hyp- 
nosis, 298 et seq. 

natural, Practice of Hetero- 
suggestion in, 299, 318, 319 

Relaxation, 154 
Snoring, 299 
Societe lorraine de psychologie 

appliquee, 17 
Soldiers in Action, 96 
Sommeil hypnotique et ses 

rapports avec la suggestion, 

he, 209, 307 
Somnambulisme, Trait e du, 7 
Somnambulist Vigil, 228 
Somnolence, 244, 296 
Souriau, 41, 162 
Spencer, 52 
Spinoza, 47, 290 
Spir, 333 
Spiritualistic Phenomena, 94, 

95 

Spitteeer, 62, 85 

Spontaneous Suggestion and 
Autosuggestion, see Sugges- 
tion, Autosuggestion 

Stage Fright, 135, 182, 183, 
184, 213 

Statue, Condillac's animated, 38 

Stigmatization, 118 

Strangeness as Factor in Sug- 
gestion, 106, 107 



INDEX 



347 



Subconscious — 
Outcropping of, see Outcrop- 
ping 
the (Baudouin's Characteri- 
zation of), 151 
the, 11, 12, 16, 28, 29, 33, 34, 
40, 44, 45, 93, 94, 95, 97, 99, 
100, 127, 130, 209, 210, 221, 
245, 246, 253, 254, 266, 270, 
288, 317, 318, 322, 328, 329, 
330 
Cheating by, 138 
Teleology, see Teleology 
Writing, see Writing 
Sublimation, 80, 81, 217 
Subliminal Consciousness, 8 
Suggestibility La, 27 
Suggestibility, 239 et seq., 286, 
287-294, 305, 306, 310 et seq. 
Suggestion als padagogische 

Faktor, 309 
Suggestion — 
and Medicine, 332 
and Autosuggestion, philos- 
ophy of, 326-333 
and Psychoanalysis, 283-286 
and the Will, 148, 149, 196, 

326-333 
as a Factor in Education, 11 
as a Cause and Cure of — 

Anger, 70, 75 

Cold, 66, 67, 73-76 

Emotion, 70-76 

Fatigue, 68 

Fear,. 70, 75 

Heat, 66, 67 

Hunger, 65, 84 

Pain, 68 

Phobias, 72 

Sensation, 64-69 

Sentiment, 77-8o 

Tendencies (Tastes, Incli- 
nations, Passions), 83-90 
can undo whatever Sugges- 
tion has done, 204, 319 
collective, 210, 263, 270, 313; 

see also Epidemic 
Conditions requisite for, 143 

et seq. 
defined, 29 



Suggestion — continued 

distinguished from Depend- 
ence, 27 

double use of the Term, 182 

etymological Significance of 
Term, 32 

general formula of, 185 et 
seq., 269 

general, 185 

habitually spontaneous, 38 

hallucinatory, 61-63 

Importance of finer Shades, 
192, 193, 194 

induced, 33, 237-325 

induced, preliminary Exer- 
cises in, 248-258 

in relation to natural Sleep, 

128-133 
in the Education of Children, 

309-319 
in the waking State, 263 
in the waking State for Chil- 
dren, 309 
is Autosuggestion, 237, 262 
is it reducible to Instinct, Af- 
fect, etc.? 135 
motor, Formula of, 47, 91 
negative or inhibitory, 66 
particular, 204-226 
Persons refractory to, 271, 

284, 285, 286 
Phases of, 37, 182, 287 
posthypnotic, 121, 122, 241, 

299 
reflective, 143-234 
spontaneous, 32, 37-140 
spontaneous by Complex, 

286 
spontaneous, Classification of, 

spontaneous, typical Exam- 
ples of, 41-46 
voluntary, see Suggestion, 

reflective 
voluntary, a Contradiction in 

Terms, 150 
What is it? 21-34 • 
which kills, 119, 120 
Suggestion dans I'art, La, 41 
Suggestion et de ses applied- 



348 



INDEX 



tions, De la, 44, 148, 149, 219, 

261, 270 
Suggestion im Dienste der 

Schule, Die, 309 
Suggestion in Education, 11 
Suggestions- 
affective, 64-90 

conditional, 120-127, 128 

curative, 265-270 

motor, 91-120 

noxious, their Control, 139, 
156, 192, 212, 241, 242, 285- 
286, 289, 313 

noxious, their Frequency, 144 

overnight, their Fruitfulness, 

174, 194 

representative, 46-63 

representative, Formula of, 47 

unforeseen, 187 
Suggestive Contagion, 139 
Suggestive Influence of affect- 
ive Sensation, 64-69 
Suicide — 

involuntary, due to a Com- 
plex, 99 

epidemic, 82 
Superstitions about Hypnotism, 

242, 320 
Symbolism, 59-62, III, 112 
Synapses, 295 



Table-turning, 95 
Taine, 53 
Tastes- 
how formed in Childhood, 84, 

85 

Control of, 216, 311 
Teleology— 

of the Subconscious, 44, 56, 
58, 75, 97, 100, 101, 121, 
126, 210, 253, 282, 322, 327, 

331 

of the Subconscious, Law of, 
138 

of the Will, 327 
Telepathy, 239, 255 
Tendencies, 83-86, 311 
Theorie .psychomecanique 'Me 

Vhypnotisme, 298 



Theory of Hypnosis, see Hyp- 
nosis, Theory of 

Therapeutical Society, 114 

Therapeutics, Suggestive, 318; 
see also Suggestion 

Theseus, 80 

Thorndike, 135, 136 

Thought, Causality of, 331 

Thought Reading, 255 

Thought Transference, see 
Telepathy 

Tic, 220 

Toads, Phobia of, J2, 213 

Tobacco Habit, 92, 209, 221 

Tolstoi, 78, 119 

Tractatus de intellectus emen- 
datione, 47 

Traite de Sensations, 38 

Traite de Yoga, 178 

Transference, 57-62, 80, 98, 134 

Transparent Hallucination, see 
Hallucination 

Travelling backwards, 314-315 

Treatment, absent, 105 

Tuberculosis, pulmonary, 114- 
116, 206, 220, 275, 276, 277 

Unconscious, the, see Subcon- 
scious 
Unconscious Conflict, Man's, 11 
Unconscious Mind, The Child's, 
11 

Vade retro Satanas, 215 
Varicose Ulcer, 224 
Vasconceeeos, 12 
Vasomotor System influenced 

by Suggestion, 120 
Veni Creator, 215 
Venus, 88 
Vertigo, 44-45 

mental, i. e. Passion, 86 
Verhaeren, 99 
Veze, 178 

Vigil, somnambulist, 228 
Vinci, 155 
Vogt, 271, 300 
Volonte, Etudes experimen- 

tales sur la, 229 
Voluntary Effort, see Effort 



INDEX 



349 



Voluntary Suggestion, see Sug- 
gestion, voluntary 

Waits, 8 

Waking at fixed Hour, 174, 224 

WarcoujER, see Duchatei, and 

Warcoeuer 
Warts, Cure of, 25, 106, 223 
Weber, 148 

Werther, 79, 215 

" Who wills can " — a false 

Aphorism, 93 
Will- 
contrasted with Suggestion, 

157, 227, 243, 326-333 
must not intervene in Auto- 
suggestion, 148, 149, 195, 
196, 227, 228, 243 
subconscious, 227 



Witches, 117 

Woman contrasted with Man, 
154, 157 

Work little and rest much, 227 

Writing, subconscious or auto- 
matic, 94, 155, 160 

WUNDT, 303 

Yawning, 93 
Yoga, 178, 179, 200 
Yoga, Traite de, 178 



Zarathustra, 81 

Zeitschrift fur Philosophic und 

Padagogik, 309 
Zola, no 
Zurich School, 16 









C83 82 -A 



